


To Touch the Stars with You - A Sam Winchester fan fiction

by torialilith



Series: To Touch the Stars [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Friendship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character(s), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25464967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torialilith/pseuds/torialilith
Summary: Beatrice Wells is eighteen years old. Smart, sassy, and one /hell/ of a shot. At thirteen, Beatrice was the only witness to her older sister's demonic murder, and dedicated the rest of her life to hunting; even teaming up with the notorious John and Dean Winchester. When John disappears suddenly, Beatrice and Dean are left to track down and recruit his younger brother Sam, years deep in a law degree at Stanford. The trio hit the road, set to find John and bring him home, but Beatrice has undeniable power welling inside of her; and she isn't sure she can control it. In a world such as theirs; filled with violence, death, and gore, is it possibly to fall in love, or is Beatrice cursed to live the life of loneliness that was promised when demons murdered her sister?- set during season one of Supernatural, originally published on Quotev in 2013 as 'Painting Love'
Relationships: Sam Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Series: To Touch the Stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844548
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	1. Pilot

/If you unknowingly wandered into the old warehouse, it was unlikely you'd ever notice anyone was there. Even if you brought a flashlight and really craned you neck to peer into the darkest shadows, it would be almost impossible to see the two teenage girls sat cross legged at the back of the room; sisters, one a handful of years older than the other. "This is a bad idea, Valerie," the youngest said uneasily, looking down at the paper her sister had gripped in her fist.

Valerie smiled. "Don't be stupid, Beatrice," she said in the know-it-all way that older sisters do, "it's only a dumb urban legend."

Beatrice inspected the words a little closer. It was a Latin passage she had found on some creepy chatroom, and upon showing Valerie, the older had demanded she copy it out. Beatrice should have known it would end like this, in a warehouse in the dark. Valerie loved tricks and pranks, but like now, often took them too far. "Please, Val," Beatrice tried again, placing a hand on her sister's forearm as though to pull her towards the exit. In response, Valerie laughed.

"Stop being so childish!" She berated her. She lifted up the paper and squinted, trying to adjust to reading the passage in the dark, and then read the Latin words aloud. Her pronunciation was a little off, but it was enough to strike fear into Beatrice's heart. When done, Valeria looked up expectantly, but nothing happened. Beatrice almost breathed out a sigh of relief, but her face fell even further when the window above them smashed, and as glass rained down upon them, black smoke shot into the room.

Valerie swore loudly, a word Beatrice had only heard her mother use when drunk. The older girl shouldered past her sister towards the warehouse exit. "Valerie!" Beatrice screamed as she stumbled, struggling to catch up.

Valerie ignored her. She grasped the door handle and pulled open the door, but as she did the smoke bypassed Beatrice, drifting by her head, and it forced itself into Valerie's open, screaming mouth and down her throat. As her eyes flashed black and a nasty grin twisted her face, her body jerked and twisted unnaturally and then her head jerked violently to one side. Beatrice heard every bone in her neck break simultaneously. The body crumpled, and as it did the black smoke escaped through her nose and flew back through the window, leaving Beatrice alone in the dark. 

“Valerie?” Beatrice whispered, placing a tentative hand on her sister’s shoulder. 

Valerie didn't move. Her eyes were glassy and unseeing and, as Beatrice met her unfocused gaze, she realised with a harsh pang that her sister was dead; and it was all her fault./

Beatrice Wells awoke in a cold sweat. Inside her chest, her heart thundered so violently she was worried it would burst straight through her rib-cage and onto the motel sheets, though they were so dirty, one more bloodstain was unlikely to make much of a difference. She cursed under her breath, collapsing back against her pillow as she tried to assure herself that it had only been a dream; even though she knew, it wasn't. /Her sister was dead. It was her fault./

The motel room was dimply lit only by the dull glow of a laptop screen that her roommate and best friend was hunched over and she realised he was in fact sleeping, and not working like he should have been, when she heard him snoring. "Dean?" She sat up in bed, pushing her hair back from her eyes. "Dean, wake up."

He bolted upright from a dead sleep, near enough knocking his laptop from the table onto the floor. "What? Who died?" He asked almost comically, looking around the room in a half asleep daze. Beatrice rolled her eyes and got out of bed. She stood behind his chair, reaching over him to close the lid of the laptop, plunging the room into darkness. 

"No one died, Dean," she said, "just a bad dream."

"Ah. Right." Dean nodded knowingly. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his flannel sleeve; the same flannel he had been wearing for three days. "Your sister?" He asked, and Beatrice nodded mutely. "We're gonna put an end to this soon, I promise."

Beatrice hummed in response. After a moment of quiet, she said, "thank you Dean, really. For everything.”

"You're welcome," he yawned, twisting around in his chair to throw an arm around her waist and draw her into his side, almost pulling her over in the process. "It's my job to look after you. You're like... the little sister I never wanted."

Beatrice rolled her eyes playfully and threw his arm off. "Any word on Sam?"

Dean nodded and got up from the table, stretching his back out and glancing at the clock on the wall opposite. "If we set off now we could reach him in a couple of hours."

Beatrice nodded and threw a jacket on over the clothes she had fallen asleep in. "Alright. Then let's get going." 

She locked the motel door behind them and then waited by the side of the Impala for Dean to drop the keys off at the front desk, even though it was late and there was likely to be no one there. He appeared after a moment and got in the driver's side while Beatrice slid in shotgun. "Ozzy?" He asked, holding up a cassette tape.

Beatrice grinned. The years she had spent hunting with Dean and, once upon a time his Father, had really shaped her music taste. "Good call," she affirmed. Dean grinned back and slid the tape into the player. "Alright," Beatrice said, sinking down comfortably into her seat, "let's go."

-*-

"Dean," Beatrice's voice was weary as she addressed him. They had been driving for hours and now, on the other side, she watched Dean attempt to shimmy awkwardly up the drainpipe towards Sam's window. "I don't think you're going to achieve anything by breaking in. Maybe... I don't know, /knocking/ would work better?"

"Shut up," Dean grunted with the effort of pulling himself up onto Sam's fire escape. He reached down and grasped Beatrice's outstretched hands to pull her up. "You got a knife?" He asked as she dusted herself off.

"You came unarmed?" She whispered back, taking her switchblade from her back pocket and handing it to him.

"Armed with guns, sure," he said as he wiggled the knife under the latch, "but guns ain't gonna do a whole lot of good breaking into an apartment, not unless we want Sammy to call the cops." The latch popped open and the window slid loose. He held it open for her while she climbed in, and then landed beside her with an unruly crash, making her cringe.

"Nice job," she berated him under her breath. Dean rolled his eyes and pulled himself up to his feet. A creak came from somewhere across the room but before her eyes could adjust to the dark and make out the source of the noise, Dean was on the ground, atop a tall, gangling figure who stared up at him, stunned, the baseball bat he had been armed with discarded somewhere under the coffee table.

"Easy tiger," Dean grinned down at his brother.

"Dean?" Sam cried. "you scared the crap out of me!"

"That's because you're out of practice," Dean shot back. Sam scowled, throwing Dean off and pinning him by his shoulders. "or not. Get off me." He shoved his brother onto the floor with his knee and then got to his feet.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam demanded as Dean crossed the room towards the fridge. His gaze was drawn from Dean to Beatrice, who lingered awkwardly still by the window. "And who the hell are you?"

“Well, that's Bea. And I'm getting a beer.”

“It’s just Beatrice.” She corrected him but both men ignored her.

“But what the Hell are you doing /here/?” Sam reiterated, visibly frustrated.

"Okay, alright, we gotta talk," Den admitted defeat, glancing up at Sam as he opened his beer on the side of the counter. Sam stared at him like he'd grown a second head and folded his arms defensively over his notably broad chest. Beatrice found herself struggling to focus on his face, before silently reprimanding herself. They were there on a job. Dean caught her staring and he smirked devilishly at her, but she pretended not to notice.

"The phone?" Sam suggested.

"If I'd have called, would you have picked up?" Dean countered. Behind him, a pretty, blonde girl appeared in the doorway, sleepily rubbing her eyes.

"Sam?" She said quietly. Beatrice shot a glare in Dean's direction, an expression that cried, 'you failed to mention her'.

"Dean, Bea, this is my girlfriend Jessica." Sam introduced them with a smile on his face, but Beatrice see how strained it was and could hear the contempt in his voice.

"Wait, your brother Dean?" Jess smiled and turned to Beatrice. "You must be his girlfriend."

"That's right!" Beatrice said brightly, cutting in before Sam or Dean had a chance to. "We're sorry for dropping in so late but we were driving through the area and, well, Dean and I just couldn't resist paying Sam a visit. Isn't that right, Dean?" She stared over at him intently but he was looking at Jess, seemingly in a daze.

"Oh, I love the smurfs," he said dreamily, noting the design on her pyjama shirt, "you know, I gotta tell you, you are way out of my brother's league."

Jess' smile became a little awkward. "I'm gonna go put something on."

Oh no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously. Anyway, we gotta borrow your boyfriend here to talk about some private family business."

"No," Sam said firmly, "anything you want to say, you can say in front of her."

Dean stared at his brother for a moment, visibly swallowing any frustration he had briefly allowed to rise. "Alright. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

"So he's working overtime on a miller time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later." Sam said with a roll of his eyes. Dean laughed, but the sound was hollow.

"Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days."

Beatrice could almost see through Sam's skull into the mechanics ticking away in his brain. His hazel eyes narrowed in thought, and then he placed a gentle hand on his girlfriend's shoulder, offering her a warm smile. "Excuse us, Jess," he said, "Dean and I have to go outside."

"I'll just... stay here, I guess." Beatrice sighed, though no one really paid her much attention. She made herself comfortable at the table and began worrying a loose thread at the hem of her shirt. Jess sat opposite her, flashing her an awkward smile before looking around the room, trying to focus on anything other than making eye contact, let alone conversation, with Beatrice. A few moments passed, and then the awkward silence was broken as Sam and Dean returned, their expressions grim.

"So, you're taking off?" Jess asked before Sam could say anything. "This about your dad? He okay?"

"Yeah. You know, just a little family drama."

"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip."

"Oh, yeah. He's just deer hunting up at the cabin. He's probably got Jim, Jack, and José along with him. I'm just going to bring him back."

"What about the interview?" 

"I'll make the interview. I'll only be gone a couple of days." 

"Sam!" Jess called. Sam stopped by the door, craning his neck to look back at her over his shoulder. "I mean, /please/. Just stop, for a second. You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

"It's just.. you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them? And with Monday coming up, which is kind a huge deal..."

"Hey, everything's going to be fine," Sam assured her, stooping to press a kiss to her cheek, "I will be back in time, I /promise/." 

"At least tell me where you're going!" Jess cried, but by the time she'd finished, the three of them had gone.


	2. Chapter 2

They drove for five hours before pulling up outside a gas station. Dean disappeared into the kiosk, leaving Sam to fill the tank while Beatrice flicked through a local newspaper. Dean reappeared after a moment with two paper bags, stuffed full with beer and junk food. "Dean, what is that?" Beatrice asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Breakfast," he said, his mouth full of sausage. He dropped the bag in between his seat and Sam's, "you two want any?"

“No thanks," Sam answered for both of them. "So, how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

"Yeah, well hunting isn't exactly a pro ball career."

"That's one way to put it," Beatrice mumbled, fishing in her own rucksack for a fruit yogurt she had packed the night before. She'd spent enough time around Dean that his unhealthy food nauseated her.

"All we do is apply," Dean defended himself, "it's not our fault they actually send the cards." By that point, Beatrice had stopped listening. She was preoccupied with a strawberry yogurt. 

"Yeah? And what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam asked.

"Uh, Burt Afram. And his son Hector."

"That sounds about right, man. Hey, you gotta update your cassette collection."

"Why?" Dean looked at Sam like he’d insulted his honour instead of his music.

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two," he pulled out a cassette, "Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"Well, house rules Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole."

"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve year old." Sam grumbled from the front of the car. "It's Sam, okay?"

"Sorry, can't hear you, music's too loud," Dean grinned, turning up AC/DC's 'Back in Black' to full volume.

Sam sighed, finally admitting defeat. Beatrice chuckled, leaning forward, "you get used to it."

"You'd think." He grumbled.

It was another two hours before they arrived in Jericho and Beatrice spent most of that time napping. After all, she'd spent half the night crossing the country, chasing after Sam. "Alright, thanks," Sam closed the phone and yawned, "so, there's no one matching Dad at the morgue or hospital, so that's something I guess."

Dean hummed in acknowledgement, pulling up towards a bridge, but without warning he slammed on the breaks, almost sending Beatrice flying through the windshield. The bridge was mostly taped off, and swarming with police officers. "Hey, check this out." He rummaged through the box of fake IDs he kept stored in the glove compartment, handing one to both Sam and Beatrice.

"Buffy Summers?" She said with a roll of her eyes. "Really?”

"That's a great show," Dean defended himself.

Beatrice didn't want to humour him with a comeback. She simply sighed, pulled her hair into a low ponytail and followed the brothers towards the crime scene. As they approached, she could just make out little snippets of conversation between a pair of officers. "You find anything yet?"

"No, nothing." 

"No sign of struggle, no fingerprints. Nothing. Spotless. It's almost too clean."

"So this kid, Troy. He's dating your daughter, isn't he?”

"Yeah."

"How's Amy doing?"

"She's putting missing persons posters up downtown."

Dean leaned against the hood of a nearby cop car, observing the two officers who had finally noticed the trio of hunters approaching. "You fellas had another one like this a few months back, correct?" Dean questioned casually.

"And who are you?" The first officer asked suspiciously, his eyes narrowed. The three of them flashed their FBI badges.

"Federal marshals."

"You three a little young for Marshalls, aren't you?" He asked, eyeing Beatrice in particular.

"Thank you, that's very kind," she responded sarcastically. "You did have another one just like this, correct?"

"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There have been others before that." 

"So the victim, you knew him?" Sam asked, taking out a small notebook. The officer nodded.

"Town like this, everybody knows everybody."

"Any connections between the victims, despite that they're all men?" Dean chimed in.

"No. Not so far as we can tell."

"So, what's the theory?" Beatrice asked, pulling herself up to sit on the hood of the car Dean had been leaning against, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Honestly? We don't know. Serial murdering? Kidnapping ring?"

"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect from you guys," Dean said. Every one of his words dripped with sarcasm. Sam rolled his eyes and stepped hard on Dean's foot.

"Thank you for your time," Beatrice said, shooting Dean an unimpressed look. "Gentlemen," she smiled warmly and pulled the two brothers away from the crime scene. As they left, Dean smacked Sam around the back of the head. 

"Ow! What was that for?" Sam snapped.

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to officers like that?"

"Come on, they don't really know what's going on," Beatrice sighed, already tired of the brother's bickering. She didn't think she could take much more of it, "we're all alone on this, I mean, if we're going to find your dad, we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." 

As they approached the Impala, two genuine FBI agents and a sheriff headed in their direction towards the crime scene. "Can I help you kids?" The sheriff asked.

"No, Sir. We were just leaving." Beatrice flashed a charming smile.

"Agent Mulder, Scully," Dean muttered, earning him a dig in the ribs.

-*-

As they wandered through the streets of Jericho, Beatrice couldn't help but notice that it was more of a ghost town than the tight knit community they had been promised by the officers. Across the road from them, a lone teenage girl pinned 'missing' posters to lamp posts outside a diner. Beatrice paused to take a look at one as they passed.

'MISSING. TROY SQUIRE'.

"I'll bet you anything that's this Amy chick," Beatrice said to the brothers.

"I think you might be right," Dean agreed. He jogged across the road, trying to catch up with the girl in a way that, in his head, was probably far less creepy than it actually looked. "Hey, are you Amy?" He called. The girl stopped, turning around to face them cautiously.

"Yeah, that's me," she said as Sam and Beatrice joined his side.

"Troy told us about you," Dean explained, breathless from jogging, "we're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is my wife Bea and my younger brother Sammy."

"He never mentioned you to me," Amy said uneasily, leaning against the red brick wall of the cafe beside her. She looked unconvinced.

"Well, that's Troy, I guess." Dean chuckled.

"We're not around very much. We're up in Modesto," Sam explained. Another young woman came out of the diner and wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulders.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asked Amy gently.

"Yeah," Amy said, though she didn't sound overly convincing.

"Do you mind if we ask a couple of questions?" Beatrice asked. A 'Troy Squire' poster flapped by aimlessly in the breeze. Amy nodded and the trio followed her and her friend into the diner. 

"I was on the phone with Troy," Amy sighed as she slid into a booth opposite them, "he was driving home. He said he'd call me right back, but he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Sam asked.

"No.. nothing I can remember."

"I like your necklace," Beatrice chimed in, looking at the pentagram charm hanging from a black shoestring around her slender neck. Amy smiled warmly, looking down at it herself. "Thanks. Troy bought it for me, to scare my parents with all that devil stuff."

"Actually, it means just the opposite." Sam told her. "A pentagram is one of the most powerful protective symbols, if you believe in that stuff." 

Dean rolled his eyes. "Thank you, unsolved mysteries." He leaned forward on the table. "Here's the deal. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." He expected Amy to answer, but instead, her friend looked down, seemingly uncomfortable and catching Beatrice’s attention.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Well... it's just... with all these guys going missing, people talk."

"What do they talk about?" Beatrice pressed.

"It's kind of a local legend," the girl explained with an extended sigh, "this one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago. Anyway, she's supposedly still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."

Beatrice exchanged a knowing glance with Sam and Dean. "Ladies, thank you for your time," she said, getting to her feet. "Give us a call if you think of anything else." She scribbled her number down on a piece of paper and slid it across the table towards them before following the brothers back out into the street. "What do you think?" She asked, "d'you think we have our spirit?"

Dean shrugged. "I think there's a pretty damn good chance."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay between updates!
> 
> Life became suddenly and unapologetically hectic these last few weeks and I've barely had time to sit down, let alone open my laptop and post! But thankfully things have calmed down a little, and I'm ready to settle back down into regularly scheduled updates. Thank you all for being patient, and please enjoy the chapter!

After leaving the diner, the three of them made their way to the local library to research the alleged murdered woman. Dean positioned himself at the last available computer and opened up the browser, his fingers tapping agonisingly slowly at the keys as he typed into the search engine, and visibly irritating both Sam and Beatrice, though he chose not to notice.

'Female murder hitchhiking'

His search pulled up nothing.

‘Female Centennial highway murder'

Again, nothing.

"Let me try." Sam said as he reached around his brother to try to get to the computer, but Dean scowled and childishly slapped his hand away.

"I got it." He insisted. Sam rolled his eyes and shoved Dean's chair to one side, positioning himself in front of the computer instead. "Dude! You're such a control freak," Dean snapped, but he finally relented and allowed his brother to take control.

"So, angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam thought aloud, ignoring Dean.

"Yeah?" Dean said, still sulking a little.

"Well, maybe it's not murder." He replaced 'murder' with suicide, and the screen flooded with results. He shot a triumphant look at Dean, who huffed loudly.

'Suicide on Centennial; A local woman's drowning death was ruled a suicide, the county sheriff's department said earlier today. Constance Welch, 24, of 4636 Breckenridge road, leapt off Sylvania bridge at mile 33 centennial highway and subsequently drowned last night.'

"Does it say why did it?" Beatrice asked, struggling to peer around both Sam and Dean at the computer screen.

"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die." Sam read aloud. "Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bare it." 

"That bridge look familiar to you?" Dean asked, studying the black and white picture attached to the article.

"That's where Troy died." Beatrice responded, secretly pleased she'd been able to help.

"Bingo."

-*-

It was dark. The night was consuming, thick like treacle only much blacker. The chill in the air was unforgiving, and above them, the moon illuminated the bridge; the only light after the street lamps had dimmed. The bridge, though still taped off, was clear of cops, and Dean had no problem navigating the Impala through the weaving crime scene tape onto the mouth of the bridge. "So, this is where Constance took the swan dive?" Dean pondered as he got out of the car and leaned over the edge of the railing.

"Do you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asked.

"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him." Dean said as he took off walking again, Sam and Beatrice not far behind him.

"Okay, so now what?" Beatrice asked, wrapping her arms around herself tightly to try and keep herself warm. Dean noticed and tossed her his thick brown leather jacket, which she gratefully accepted and pulled around her dainty shoulders. 

"Now, we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." Dean shrugged. Sam sighed audibly, lingering back by the car even as Beatrice and Dean went on.

"Guys, I've told you. I've gotta be back by Monday." He told them. He appeared to do so casually, but his tone was unmistakably firm . Dean and Beatrice stopped dead in the middle of the bridge and both turned around to face him.

"Monday, right," Dean said, his own voice strained, "the interview."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you?” Dean challenged him. Beatrice flinched at his harsh tone, even though his words had not been aimed at her. “I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" 

Sam narrowed his eyes in response. "No, and she's not ever going to know."

"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you are." Dean spat. He turned to continue walking. Sam stormed after him, past Beatrice. She briefly debated with chasing after them but instead she stayed by the railing, simply observing the fight; and readying herself to step in if it escalated. Dean had told her horror stories of past Winchester family feuds, and it was not something she wanted to find herself in the middle of.

"And who's that?" Sam shot back. His every word dripped with venom.

"You're one of us." Dean retorted seriously but Sam laughed nastily in his face.

"No, I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"You have a responsibility-" Dean started angrily but Sam cut him off, just as furious.

"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looked like. Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back!"

Dean's features twisted with unimaginable rage at the mention of his mother. He grabbed the collar of Sam's jacket and slammed him into one of the bridge's tall steel pillars. "Don't talk about her like that." He warned.

Across from them, Beatrice cleared her throat loudly. "Uh... guys?"

They both turned to look at her. She was stood with their back to them, staring down the bridge. Dean released Sam and the two of them followed her gaze to see a ghostly woman, dressed in white lace, standing on the bridge's railing. She was a good few feet away but regardless, she observed them quietly, and with great interest. Beatrice could even swear she was smiling, if only a little.

"Well I'll be damned." Dean mumbled. He and Sam joined Beatrice, one of them on either side of her, and as they reached her, Constance took one final, long good look at them, before stepping off the railing into the mouth of the river below. The three of them rushed to the railing where she had been standing only moments before, but the waters below were clear, and there was no sign she'd even been there at all. Not even a ripple. 

"Where did she go?" Dean demanded to no one in particular.

"I don't know," Beatrice answered, stunned. Behind them, the Impala's engine roared into life and the headlights flashed on, illuminating the dark bridge. "Dude, who's driving your car?" Beatrice asked. Dean shook his head, bewildered, and held up the keys from the pockets of his jeans.

The car raced forward suddenly at an alarming speed. Dean grabbed Sam and Beatrice as he sprinted past them towards the railing. The three of them reached the edge and, in a share moment of madness, launched themselves over the railing. Beatrice landed awkwardly on the ledge just below and lost her footing, almost slipping and falling into the river but Sam reached out with impressive speed and grabbed her wrist. "I gotcha," he assured her, hoisting her up to perch beside him. 

"Thanks," she gasped, struggling to catch her breath. "Where's Dean?"

"Dean?" Sam called, panic rising to his face. "Dean!" That time, there was slightly more urgency in his voice, and Beatrice joined in, her heart hammering with anxiety. Below them, a filthy and panting figure crawled onto the riverbed.

"What?" The figure yelled. Dean. Beatrice breathed out in relief."Are you alright?" She called down. He shot her a look. "I'm super." He snapped back. Sam laughed, relieved, and pulled himself back onto the bridge before reaching down and helping Beatrice climb back up as well. They stayed there for a good ten minutes, watching with great amusement as Dean struggled to make it back up to the bridge, as he slipped repeatedly back down into the mud.

"The car okay?" Beatrice asked when he finally rejoined them.

"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems okay now. This Constance chick, what a bitch!" He yelled. 

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure." Beatrice said with a heavy sigh. "So where's the job go from here, genius?" She sat beside Dean on the hood of the car but turned her nose up in disgust and got to her feet again, moving as far away from him as she could. "You smell like a toilet." She said. Dean glared at her.

"We should check in a motel." Sam suggested, failing to suppress a laugh at their antics.

"Yeah, I second that." Dean grumbled. He moved to get into the driver's seat but Beatrice cleared her throat.

"Maybe I should drive.” She said.

Dean didn't look overly thrilled with the arrangement, but he relented and climbed into the back of Impala, letting Sam and Beatrice get into the front with Beatrice behind the wheel. The journey back to the motel was silent. Beatrice was worried that if she opened her mouth she would vomit due to the strength of the foul smell emitting from Dean in the back. After fifteen minutes of tense silence, she was almost thankful for the croaky, smoker's voice of the clerk behind the desk.

"One room, please." Dean yawned, handing the clerk a debit card.

"You guys having a reunion or something?" The clerk said as he scanned the card slowly under a 1999 issued machine. He either didn't notice the state Dean was in, or he didn't care.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked with a frown.

"I had another guy. Burt Aframian. He came and bought a room for the whole month."

"Yes! That's exactly what we're doing. A reunion." Beatrice interjected before either brother could answer for themselves. "Now, what was Burt's room number?"


	4. Chapter 4

After Sam finished picking the motel room lock, Beatrice pushed open the door and poked her head in through the crack, giving the room a quick once over before she actually went in, followed by the brothers. The room was utter chaos. Every vertical surface was decorated with old maps and missing persons reports, dating back decades, and all centred around Jericho. "Whoa," Beatrice muttered. As Dean flicked on the overhead light, Beatrice eyed a half eaten burger by the sofa and she picked it up, giving it a little sniff which she immediately regretted, and she found herself holding back vomit again. "I don't think he's been here for a couple of days at least," she concluded, dropping the burger into the trash.

Sam hummed in agreement. He dipped his finger into a small pile of decaying salt on the bedside table. "Salt, cats eye shells... he was worried, trying to keep something from coming in." He glanced across the room at Beatrice, who was intently reading a news clipping that had been pasted to the wall by the fridge. "What have you got there?" He asked her.

"Centennial highway victims." Beatrice told him without turning around. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities..." 

"There's always a connection, right?" Sam said, coming to stand beside her, "what do these guys have in common?" He turned away and flicked on the bedside lamp. "Huh. Dad figured it out."

Beatrice finally turned to him, her eyebrows raised. "What do you mean?" 

"He found the same article we did," he explained, pointing to another of John's news clippings on the wall opposite to her, "Constance Welch, she's a woman in white." 

Dean glanced over at the photos of Constance's victims and he chuckled under his breath. "You sly dogs. So, if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness?" Beatrice suggested. 

Dean shrugged. "Dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up. Does it say were she's buried?" He turned to Sam, who shook his head.

"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." He tapped the picture of Joseph Welch with his index finger.

"If he's still alive," Beatrice reminded them with a sigh.

"Alright. Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address. I'm gonna go get cleaned up." Dean headed towards the bathroom, but Sam cleared his throat and he paused in the doorway, turning back to face him.

"Hey, Dean? What I said about Mom and Dad, I... I'm sorry." He started to say, but Dean held up his hand, stopping him.

"No chick flick moments." He said firmly. Sam laughed.

"Alright. Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean grinned and, still smirking, disappeared into the bathroom.

-*-

The next morning, Beatrice left the bathroom after her quick shower to find Sam sitting on the edge of his bed, caught up in his own thoughts as he replayed a voicemail from Jess. "You should call her," Beatrice said conversationally as she towel dried the ends of her hair. Sam startled, having evidently not heard her come in.

"I'll be back by tonight," he said with a shake his head, dropping his phone back into his jacket pocket.

"You really love her, huh?"

“More than anything.” Sam affirmed with the ghost of a smile.

Beatrice opened her mouth to say something else, but was cut off as Dean came into the room from the parking lot. "Hey, guys. I'm starving," he yawned, "I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?"

"No." Beatrice and Sam said simultaneously, clearly haunted by the memory of the previous day's breakfast.

"I'll come with you, though," Beatrice offered. She threw on a dark sweater over her plain T-shirt, waved goodbye to Sam and followed Dean out towards the Impala. As she closed the room door behind her she saw Dean freeze, and beyond him, spotted the motel clerk talking to the two officers they had met the day before. She thought nothing of it, until the clerk pointed at the two of them. Dean cursed under his breath and slipped his phone out of his pocket to call Sam.

"Dude, five oh. Take off. Uh, they kinda spotted us. Go find Dad." He shut off the phone just in time as the deputies approached them. He glanced sideways at Beatrice and whispered, "Bea, get out of here." 

Beatrice scoffed. "As if."

Dean smirked at her. Clearly he'd been more of a bad influence on her than he thought. He turned to the cops. "Problem, officers?"

"Where's your partner?" One of them asked.

"Partner? What partner?" Beatrice said innocently.

"Don't act so innocent, sweetheart. You're in just as much trouble as he is." The deputy warned her. He glanced at the motel and motioned for his partner to check it out. Beatrice inwardly cursed, silently praying that Sam got out in time.

"So, fake US Marshall. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?" The officer asked.

"My boobs." Dean said with a shit-eating grin. The officer rolled his eyes, grabbing Dean and cuffing him quickly, slamming him against the hood of the car. Beatrice attempted to take off in the opposite direction but he ambushed her from behind and threw her down beside Dean.

"You have the right to remain silent…”

-*-

"So, you want to give us your real names?" The sheriff circled Dean and Beatrice who were handcuffed together.

"I told you," Dean insisted wearily, "it's Nugent, Ted Nugent. This is my sister Kathy."

"I'm not sure you realise just how much trouble you're in, here."

"Are we talking like, misdemeanour kind of trouble, or, uh, squeal like a pig kind of trouble?" Beatrice smirked. The sheriff glared at her. "Listen here, Princess. You've got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall. Along with a whole lot of other Satanic mumbo jumbo. Kids, you are officially suspects."

"That makes sense," Dean responded sarcastically, rolling his eyes, "because when the first one went missing in '82, I was three and she wasn't even born." 

"I know you've got partners. One of em's an older guy, and maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me, Dean," he tossed a brown leather book across the table, "this his?"

"It's my high school locker combo," Dean told him coolly, but Beatrice didn't miss the layer of sweat that had started to gleam on his brow.

"Oh really?" The sheriff scoffed, visibly unconvinced.

"Yes! I don't know how many times you want me to tell you!"

"We gonna do this all night long?" 

Behind him, the door opened and one of the lower ranking deputies poked his head around the door. "We just got a 911, shots fired over Whiteford Road." He told the sheriff, who nodded in acknowledgement.

"You have to go to the bathroom?" He asked Dean and Beatrice.

"No." Dean answered for the both of them. 

"Good." The sheriff circled around the table. He cuffed them to the table leg and then left, closing the door behind him.

"What's the plan?" Dean asked her. Beatrice hushed him.

She sat silently, waiting for a moment until she heard the station door down the corridor open and then slam shut again. When she was sure they wouldn't be interrupted, she reached across Dean, (who leaned back in his chair to avoid getting a faceful of breasts), and she slipped out a paperclip from between the pages of John's journal. She sunk back in her seat and used the paperclip to unpick the handcuffs, which clicked open after a moment. Beatrice winced as she rubbed her sore wrists but she grinned at Dean triumphantly nevertheless and got up out of the chair. "Alright, let's get out of here."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies again for the late upload. I've been suffering a real mental health slump lately, and haven't had much motivation to do much at all. I'm trying to push through and keep uploading anyway, even though it is a little late. Thank you all again for being so patient, and I really hope you enjoy this chapter!

Beatrice and Dean crammed themselves awkwardly into a phone booth across the street from the station. Manoeuvring around Beatrice so he didn't accidentally elbow her in the face, Dean stabbed Sam's number into the dial pad and held the receiver up between the two of them so they could both join in on the conversation. "Fake 911 call?" Dean said with a smirk when his brother answered, "Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal."

"You're welcome." Sam answered. Beatrice could hear the smile in his voice.

"Listen, we gotta talk." Dean said.

"Tell me about it. So the husband was unfaithful. We're dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should be Dad's next stop."

"Sammy, would you just shut up for a second?" Dean tried again, but Sam either ignored him or didn't hear and went on.

"I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet."

"Well, that's what we’re trying to tell you," Beatrice said loudly over the top of him, "he's gone. John's left Jericho." 

Sam was silent for a moment, before saying, "what? How do you know?"

“We have his journal, Sam.”

"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing."

"Yeah, well he did this time." Dean said with a heavy sigh.

"What's it say?" Sam asked.

"Ah, the same old ex marine crap. He wants to let us know where he's going." Dean explained.

"Coordinates," Sam concluded for himself, "where to?"

"We're not sure yet." Beatrice admitted. "I'm still trying to work it out."

"I don't understand, I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?" Sam asked. Before Dean could reply, there was the sound of breaks squealing in the background, and then the phone thumping against the floor.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean cried. Before the line went dead, there was a single hiss; a woman's voice.

'Take me home.'

Dean stared at the phone for a moment before dropping it and taking off out of the phone booth at top speed. Beatrice cursed under her breath, having to sprint to catch up with him. "Dean!" She called. "Wait up!"

"She has my brother, Beatrice!"

"Oh for- Dean, listen, she can't kill him!"

"Why the hell not?"

"Because Sam isn't unfaithful!" She reminded him.

They reached Constance's house in good time. The Impala was parked on the driveway, and through the driver's seat window, Beatrice could just make out the shape of Sam pinned to the front seat, struggling to single-handedly fight the apparition holding him there. She rushed to the car, taking out a salt shotgun from the trunk which she threw to Dean, who shot thrice at the ghost until it disappeared. Sam sat up with a groan, rubbing his head.

"Are you okay?” Beatrice asked him urgently.

"Y-Yeah. I'm fine."

"Can you move?"

"Yeah, can... can you help me?" He looked pleadingly towards her. She opened the car door and grasped his wrists, pulling him out and to his feet while Dean rushed towards the house. Beatrice and Sam soon followed, though Sam was still a little uneasy on his feet.

When they burst into the house, they found Constance stood in the middle of the lounge, clutching a framed photograph of two small children, whom Beatrice could only assume were hers.

The spirit spotted them in the doorway and dropped the picture on the ground with such force that it smashed, the glass scattering across the floor. A desk flew across the room towards them, pinning the three of them to the adjacent wall. As they struggled to throw off the large piece of furniture, the lights upstairs flickered, and two children appeared on the staircase, water dripping from beneath their feet and puddling on the floor in front of Constance. "You came home to us, Mommy," they said in unison.

Constance stared at them, and though she didn't say anything, her features creased with visible grief. They disappeared from the stairs and reappeared behind her, embracing her tightly around the waist. There was a sudden burst of bright light, almost blinding. Constance screamed, agonised, and then the three of them disappeared as though they hadn't been there at all.

With the spirit gone, Dean finally managed to push the desk away, and the three of them staggered away from the wall, winded. "So this is where she drowned her kids," Beatrice concluded mournfully.

Sam nodded in agreement, staring at the puddle where Constance had been stood only moments before. "That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." Dean praised him.

"Yeah. Wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking, shooting Caspar in the face?" Sam asked, though he did little to conceal the grin playing on his lips. 

"Hey, saved your ass," Dean reminded him. The three of them bundled back into the Impala, Beatrice in the back and the two brothers in the front. Dean turned on the radio to 'Highway to Hell' and he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the drum beat of the song. "I'll tell you another thing, if you screwed up my car, I'll kill you."

The Impala tore down the road away from the house. Sam flicked through the journal, opening it to the page where John had hastily scribbled the coordinates. A flashlight balanced between his ear and his shoulder, he used a ruler to find the location on a map. "Okay, so here's where Dad went," he said, "it's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

Dean nodded. "Sounds charming. How far?"

"About six hundred miles." 

"Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning." Dean grinned at Sam.

Sam shifted uneasily in his seat, deliberately avoiding his brother's gaze. "Dean, I, um..."

"You're not going." Beatrice said from the back. It wasn't a question.

"The interview's in like... ten hours. I gotta be there." Sam admitted. Dean nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Looks like it's just you and me, then, "he muttered, flashing Beatrice a sad smile in the wing mirror, then he turned back to Sam. "I'll take you home."

They pulled up some time later outside Sam's apartment block. He got out, but hesitated, leaning against the open door. "Call me if you find him?" He said. Dean nodded. "And I can maybe meet up with you later, huh?" He added, somewhat hopefully. There was an air of nostalgia to his voice, as though he had secretly missed the time with his brother, (though perhaps not the peril and constant bickering that came with it).

"Yeah, alright." Dean mumbled, avoiding his brother's gaze. Seeing him go would simply be too painful. Beatrice got out of the car to swap into the front seat and as she passed Sam, she pulled him into a tight hug.

"You take care of yourself, okay? And take care of Jess, too" She said with a small smile.

"I will. Bye, Bea." He waved once, and then disappeared into the block. Beatrice slid in shotgun and she smiled encouragingly at Dean, a smile he returned weakly as he woke up the engine. She reached across to squeeze his hand, but froze halfway there, her face falling drastically. Dean stared at her, bewildered.

"Beatrice? What's wrong?" He asked.

"Something isn't right."

"What?"

"You're just going to have to trust me on this." She insisted urgently. She got out of the Impala reaching speeds Dean didn't know she was capable of, and she sprinted into the apartment block towards Sam's home, leaving Dean no choice but to follow.

She reached his front door and went in without knocking. She was immediately met with a faceful of black smoke, which billowed out from underneath the bedroom door into the living area and her eyes watered. "Dean!" She cried.

Dean pushed past her, kicking open the bedroom door. The space in front of Beatrice was flooded with almost unbearable levels of heat from the fire that was raging around Sam. Beatrice choked on the thick smoke, but she pushed through the cloud into the bedroom. The room was slowly being eaten by flames, centring around the ceiling, and in the midst of all the carnage, Jess was pinned to the ceiling. Her stomach had been slashed, but Beatrice was sure it was the fire that had killed her.

Sam was laid back on his elbows on the bed, staring up at his murdered girlfriend in abject horror. His screams were absolutely haunting as he called out her name repeatedly, a demented chant he prayed would startle her back to life. 

"O-Oh my God," Beatrice stammered from the doorway.

"Sam!" Dean yelled. He rushed past Beatrice, grabbing Sam's arm and attempting to pull him off the bed.

Sam struggled violently, trying to throw his brother off. "Jess!" 

"Beatrice, help me!" Dean yelled over Sam's cries and the roar of the fire. His cry was enough to snap her out of her horrified trance and she grasped Sam's other arm, helping Dean pull him back towards the door and away from the woman he loved.

"No, Jess! Jess!" Sam howled, but he admitted defeat and as the fight left him, he allowed Dean and Beatrice to forcefully remove him from the room. Beatrice slammed the door hard behind them, and inside, the room was completely engulfed with flames. "No!" Sam screamed. He rushed for the door again but the handle scorched his palm and he had no choice but to jerk back.

Dean grabbed Sam around the waist and pulled him towards the window and as Beatrice followed closely behind, she couldn't help but think about how Sam should have called Jess when he had the chance.


	6. Wendigo

"This song is terrible."

It had been the first time Beatrice had spoken for the entire journey. Dean startled at the sudden sound of her voice, and then he scowled at her in the rear view mirror. "What do you have against Foreigner?" He asked her defensively.

"Everything, Dean! Everything!"

Dean chuckled and turned the radio up to infuriate her, but in doing so, only awoke his brother in the passenger seat. Sam startled upright, so violently he almost smacked his head on the ceiling. "You okay, Sam?" Beatrice asked him, leaning forward in her seat.

"Yeah, fine," Sam assured her, though he didn't sound fine at all. Quite the opposite, if anything.

"Another nightmare?" Dean pressed, taking his eyes off the road just for a second. Sam cleared his throat in response and attempted to laugh but the sound got lost somewhere within his throat and just came out sort of... choked, almost like he was crying instead. Dean seemed to consider this reaction for a moment, and then asked, "do you want to drive for a while?"

That time, Sam did manage to laugh, though it did sound a little bitter. "Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that."

"Just thought you might want to," Dean shrugged, "never mind."

"Look, guys..." Sam sighed heavily, "I know you're worried about me. I get it. And... thank you, but I'm perfectly okay!" He looked between the two of them and noticed neither of them looked convinced, but regardless, neither of them challenged him. "Alright, where are we?"

Beatrice picked up the map from the seat beside her and held it up to show him. "Just outside of Grand Junction."

Sam hummed in response. He was quiet for a moment, and then said, "you know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

It was then Dean's turn to sigh. "Sam... we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing! If you want to find the thing that killed Jessica-"

"-we gotta find Dad first," Sam finished glumly.

"If you ask me, John disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence," Beatrice said, before assuring Sam, "John will have answers. He'll know what to do."

"It's weird," Sam said, taking the map from Beatrice, "these coordinates he left us, this 'Blackwater Ridge'..."

"What about it?" Dean asked.

"There's nothing there. It's just woods. Why's he sending us to the middle of nowhere?"

Dean shrugged mutely in response and pulled up outside a small ranger station by the side of the road, nearing the edge of the dense forest. Beatrice looked wearily up at the trees through the window. "Scared?" Dean teased her. Beatrice scowled at him. "Yeah," she responded, unashamed, "aren't you? I mean, we of all people know what's out there, Dean."

"Yeah, alright, good point," he chuckled and got out of the car. Beatrice met Sam's eye in the rear view mirror and they exchanged an awkward smile, before they too got out of the Impala and followed Dean up to the station. 

"So, Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote," Sam told them, eyeing a 3D map by the side of the station, "it's cut off by these canyons here. Rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place..."

"Dude, check out the size of this freakin' bear," Dean said instead, distracted by a framed photograph of a ranger with a stuffed Grizzly Bear, which was almost twice the man's size.

"...and a dozen more grizzlies in the area," Sam concluded, "it's no nature hike, that's for sure."

"You kids aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?" A voice said behind them. The trio turned to see a ranger, eyeing them suspiciously. 

Beatrice flashed him her most charming smile. "Oh, no sir. We're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper."

"Recycle, man," Dean added helpfully. Beatrice shot him a look.

"Bull," the ranger scoffed. The charming smile fell from Beatrice's face, "you're friends with that Haley girl, right?"

"Yes, yes we are, Ranger..." Dean trailed off to read the name tag on the ranger's jacket, "Wilkinson."

"Well, I will tell you exactly what we told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it? You tell that girl to quit worrying; I'm sure her brother's just fine."

"We will," Beatrice assured him, "well, that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?"

"That is putting it mildly."

"Actually, you know what would help?" Dean cut in, "if we could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date."

For a moment, the ranger still didn't look convinced, but then he disappeared into the station, coming out a moment later with a copy of the permit for them. "Thank you, sir," Sam said warmly. The ranger grunted in response and headed back inside, closing the door behind him. "What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asked his brother once the ranger was out of ear shot.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?"

"Maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it," Beatrice suggested as she opened her car door.

Neither brother had a clever retort for her. As they too got into the car, Dean chuckled, and Sam shot him a look. "What?" He asked, just as defensive as Dean had been when Beatrice had insulted Foreigner.

"Since when are you all shoot first, ask questions later?" Dean responded

Sam shrugged. "Since now."

Dean chuckled at that. The three of them got back into the Impala and Dean took off down the road, heading towards the address the ranger had given them. It was a short drive, but by the time they arrived, Beatrice was feeling particularly nauseous due to Dean's wayward driving. "You suck," she reprimanded him queasily as she got out of the car and made her way up the front porch towards the house.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Not my fault you can't handle my driving."

"Well, maybe you should drive better, Dean!"

"She's not wrong," Sam laughed, "you do take the bends a little harsh."

Dean shot his brother a glare. They reached the door of the house and Dean rapped his knuckles loudly against the frosted glass in the middle. After a moment, a young, pretty girl opened the door and peered around at them. "Yeah?"

"You must be Haley Collins," Dean greeted her with a smile, "I'm Dean, and this is Sam, and Bea. We're ah... we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother, Tommy."

Haley seemed to visibly hesitate. "Lemme see some ID."

The smile not dropping from his face, Dean reached into his inside jacket pocket and flashed her one of his many fake IDs. Haley looked at it, then back up at the three of them, and then she stepped aside and opened the door a little wider. "Come on in," she said.

"Thanks," Dean beamed. 

"That yours?" She asked, looking past the trio at the Impala, still parked on the street.

"Yeah." Dean nodded.

"Nice car."

Dean grinned as he went into the entryway, followed closely by Sam and Beatrice who both smiled warmly at Haley as they entered. It was a quaint little house, the sort of place Beatrice could have seen herself living, had her circumstances been at all different. "So, if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Mina asked Haley as she led them into the kitchen, where another young boy was sitting at the table, typing furiously at a laptop. He barely acknowledged them as they went in.

"He checks in every day by cell," Haley explained, "he emails, photos, stupid little videos... we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception," Sam suggested, but Haley shook her head.

"He's got a satellite phone too."

"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?" Beatrice offered, though even she wasn't convinced.

"He wouldn't do that," the boy at the table said fiercely. Beatrice eyed him carefully but he looked quickly back at his laptop screen, deliberately avoiding her gaze.

"Ben," Haley said, almost in a warning tone. Her expression softened as she turned back to the others. "Our parents are gone," she elaborated for them, "it's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asked.

Haley nodded. She glanced across the table at Ben, who sighed in an indignant sort of fashion, but he slid his laptop across to her. She hummed under her breath in concentration as she pulled up the appropriate files, and then she turned the screen around to show the three hunters. There was a boy grinning at them from the thumbnail of the video she had found. "That's Tommy," she told them, clicking play.

'Hey Haley! Day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow!'

The video came to an end and the screen went black. "Well, we'll find your brother," Dean assured the two siblings, "we're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing."

"Then maybe I'll see you there," Haley told them with a shrug, "look, I can't sit around here anymore. So... I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."

Dean smiled at her, but it was strained and didn't quite meet his eye. "I think I know how you feel."


	7. Chapter 7

"So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic," Beatrice told them, struggling to be heard over the buzz of bar chatter. Just across from their booth, a young man cheered loudly, vocalising his victory as he emerged triumphant in a small game of pool. Beatrice sighed, leaning forward across the booth, closer to Sam and Dean so she didn't have to shout. "It's local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found."

"Any before that?" Dean asked, watching Beatrice take John's journal out of her bag.

She nodded. She flicked through the journal and then turned it around to show him and Sam the page she had found, "yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959, and again before that in 1936. Every twenty three years, just like clockwork."

Sam hummed in acknowledgement as he pulled out his laptop from his own bag, which he placed on the table. When he opened the lid, the computer was already open to a copy of Tommy's video that Haley had forwarded to him. "Okay, watch this. Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out."

He played the video for them, frame by frame. Behind Tommy, a dark shadow passed through the trees. "Do it again," Dean said, and Sam obliged, replaying the same few frames again.

"That's three frames," he told them, "that's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move."

"Told you something was going on!" Dean grinned, a little too excited that they had managed to catch a case.

"Yeah," Sam said, with a playful roll of his eyes.

"I got one more thing," Beatrice told them, flicking to a new page in the journal, "in fifty nine, one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Dean glanced over at the article she had found. "Is there a name?"

-*-

The Impala pulled up outside the run down house. It wasn't too far from the bar, but they had driven anyway. "It doesn't even look like anyone lives here," Beatrice told the brothers in a hushed voice as they got out of the car, but then she spotted an elderly man sitting on the porch, smoking heavily. "Okay, I stand corrected."

"Mr Shaw?" Sam called. The man looked up. He dropped his cigarette deliberately into an ash tray, but then lit up another one before responding.

"Yeah, who's askin?" He said warily, his voice hoarse from years of smoking.

"My name is Sam," he told him, approaching the porch witch Dean and Beatrice lingering behind him, "these are my partners, Dean and Beatrice. We're rangers from up near Blackwater. We wanted to talk to you about... about the night your parents died."

Mr Shaw scoffed. He exhaled a mouthful of smoke, and then said, "look, Ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-"

"A Grizzly?" Beatrice interrupted. "That's what attacked them?" 

"That's right," Mr Shaw responded, but he didn't appear overly sincere. He held out a cigarette towards Beatrice but she shook her head.

"The other people that went missing that year, were those bear attacks too?" She pressed. Mr Shaw didn't answer. He eyed her uneasily, unsure of where exactly she was going with her point. "What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing? Listen, if we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."

Mr Shaw scoffed. "I seriously doubt that. Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make. You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did."

"Mr Shaw, what did you see?" Sam asked gently.

Mr Shaw hesitated again. He looked between the three of them, then sighed in defeat and put out his cigarette on the railing that separated them from his porch. "Nothing," he told them, "it moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. Its roar. Like... no man or animal I ever heard."

"It came at night?"

"It got inside our cabin. I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up until I hear my parents screaming."

"It killed them?"

Mr Shaw sighed again. He lit up a third cigarette. "Dragged them off into the night. Why it left me alive... been asking myself that ever since. It did leave me this, though." He paused to roll up his T-shirt sleeve to reveal three long scars across his shoulder. It looked as though something had clawed him, and violently at that. "There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon."

"Thank you for your time, Mr Shaw. We'll let you get back to your evening." Beatrice told him sincerely. He grunted in response and relaxed back in his deck chair, signifying the conversation was indeed over. 

"Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors," Dean whispered as they headed back towards the Impala, "if they want inside, they just... go through the walls."

"So it's probably something else, something corporeal," Beatrice shrugged.

Dean scoffed. "Corporeal? Excuse me, Professor."

"Shut up," Beatrice snapped, "so, what do you think?"

"The claws, the speed that it moves... could be a Skinwalker, maybe a black dog. Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's corporeal. Which means we can kill it." 

"We cannot let that Haley girl go out there," Sam said firmly, getting into the passenger side of the car.

"Oh, yeah? What are we gonna tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?" Dean scoffed, but Sam looked at him completely seriously and nodded. Dean rolled his eyes. "Her brother's missing, Sam. She's not gonna just sit this out. Now, we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend."

"Finding Dad's not enough? Now we gotta babysit too?" Sam snapped. That time, it was Dean's turn to stare at his brother. Sam scowled at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Dean said innocently, holding up his hands.

He pulled off the side of the road where he had parked and took off back towards their motel. As they arrived, Dean turned in his seat to toss Beatrice the keys to their room. "I'm gonna take off and pick up some food, you guys want anything?"

Sam grimaced at the thought. "I'm good."

"Yeah, me too," Beatrice said, "I'd like to get through this case without food poisoning."

"Alright, suit yourselves," Dean shrugged.

Sam and Beatrice got out of the car and made their way silently through the motel corridors to their room. It was small, and barely habitable for the three of them, but Beatrice told herself as she collapsed onto the sofa that it was only for one night. "Hey, Bea, can I ask you something?" Sam said as he lingered by the fridge, helping himself to one of the pre-stocked beers.

"Oh, sure. Go for it," Beatrice said, a little awkwardly. She was admittedly not yet used to being around Sam without Dean there too.

"How did you get involved with Dean and Dad?" He asked, handing her a beer as well. 

Beatrice laughed nostalgically at the memory, but there was a hint of sadness there too. “When I was sixteen, I took off from my Mom,” she explained, “I wanted to hunt independently and, for a while, things were going well. But then there was this one hunt. It should have been a standard salt and burn, you know? But the spirit got the upper hand. I thought I was going to die, but John and Dean were hunting the same spirit. They saved me. John thought I’d end up dead if I stayed on my own, so he took me under his wing.”

“Huh,” Sam said. He took a sip of his drink before asking, “did they ever mention me?”

Beatrice wrinkled her nose. “John never did,” she told him, “Dean would, sometimes. When he was drunk. But he never mentioned it the next morning and neither did I.”

Sam hummed thoughtfully in response. Beatrice wanted to ask what had actually happened between him and his family, but she wasn't sure it was the right time to do so. Regardless, Beatrice had seen the way John Winchester treated Dean; like he was a soldier rather than his son, someone submissive to his every order and command. She wondered if he'd done the same to Sam. 

"We should get some sleep," she said after a moment. "Long day tomorrow."

"Mhm," Sam agreed. "I don't mind taking the sofa. You and Dean can have the beds."

"Thanks, Sam," she said genuinely. She drained her bottle of beer and then padded across the room to the pair of twin beds. She flopped atop hers, without bothering to change out of her clothes. "G'night, Sam," she mumbled into her pillow.

"Night, Bea."


	8. Chapter 8

Dean pulled up in the parking lot just on the edge of the forest. Despite the light of the sun overhead, the space inside the forest was as dark as night, almost as though it existed in an entirely different timeline. Haley and Ben were stood at the mouth of the woods, chatting with another man, though Beatrice could not make out what they were saying.

"You guys got room for one more?" She called over to them as they got out of the car.

"Wait, you want to come with us?" Haley asked, stunned.

"Who are these guys?" The man she was with asked her.

"Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for the search and rescue."

"You're rangers?" The man asked them incredulously.

"That's right," Dean confirmed.

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Haley scoffed.

"Well, Sweetheart. I don't do shorts."

"What, you think this is funny?" The man snapped. Beatrice glanced over at Dean and saw him suppress the urge to roll his eyes. "It's dangerous back country out there. Her brother might be hurt."

"Believe me, we know how dangerous it can be," Beatrice said quickly before Dean got them into anymore trouble, "we just want to help them find their brother, that's all."

"It's alright, Roy," Haley said softly, "they can come. They can help us."

Roy still didn't look impressed but when he took off into the woods, he allowed the trio, accompanied by Haley and Ben, to follow. "It's gonna be dangerous out here," Roy told them over his shoulder, "there's all sorts in these woods. Lucky for you, I hunt."

Beatrice bit her lip to stifle a laugh. "Oh yeah?" She said, acting impressed, "what kind of furry critters do you hunt, Roy?"

"Oh, mostly Buck. Sometimes bear."

Dean scoffed at his response. He stepped ahead in front of Roy, turning back to face him as he spoke. "Tell me, Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?" He teased. Roy rolled his eyes but then grabbed Dean's arm, pulling him out of the lead. Dean's face fell. "Watcha doing, Roy?" 

"You should watch where you're stepping, Ranger," Roy told him coolly. He picked up a stick from the ground and dropped it in the spot Dean was about to step into. The unforgiving jaws of a bear trap snapped closed around the stick, severing it into two equal parts. Dean stared down at the stick, then at his ankle, and realised it could well have been his leg in the trap. He shuddered at the thought.

As they moved to follow after Roy again, Haley grabbed Dean's arm, pulling him back. While Ben and Roy failed to notice and continued hiking up the hill, Sam and Beatrice stopped. Dean glanced over at them and nodded once, a clear indication to go on.

Beatrice hesitated but ultimately obeyed, taking off up the hill after the others. "What do you think that was about?" Sam asked her.

She shrugged. "It's Dean. He's probably using this opportunity to get her number."

Sam chuckled at her response. "You two are pretty close, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," she nodded, "Dean's like... my partner in crime. I'd be lost without him."

"N'aww, that's very sweet, Beatrice," a voice teased her from behind. She glanced over her shoulder to see Dean and Haley trekking up the hill, just in time to catch the tail end of her conversation with Sam.

"Shut up," she scowled, her usually olive toned cheeks flushing red.

Dean grinned at her and ruffled her hair, but she couldn't bring herself to be truly irritated with him. "This is it," Roy said up ahead, oblivious to the conversations going on behind him, "Blackwater Ridge."

"What coordinates are we at?" Sam asked, heading past Roy to look out at the Ridge.

Roy paused to pull out a GPS. "Thirty five and minus one eleven."

"You hear that?" Dean asked Beatrice quietly. She shook her head. "Exactly. Nothing. Not even crickets."

"I'm gonna go take a look around." Roy told them.

Beatrice shook her head, attempting to grab his wrist as he passed her. "You shouldn't go off by yourself."

"That's sweet," Roy scoffed, "don't worry about me."

He brushed her hand off and shouldered past Sam and Dean, retaking the lead into the forest that led on from the Ridge. Dean sighed heavily, turning to Ben and Haley, "alright, everybody stays together. Let's go."

"Hey, over here!" Roy yelled from somewhere within the trees. The group exchanged a worried glance, and then sprinted through the underbrush to the small clearing where he was standing among the ruins of an abandoned campsite. 

"Oh my god," Beatrice gasped.

The scene was utter chaos. There had been three tents, once upon a time, but now they were torn open and bloodied, and the supplies that had once been inside were scattered among the ground. "Looks like a grizzly," Roy concluded.

"Tommy..." Haley stammered. She threw off her backpack and stumbled into the clearing. "Tommy? Tommy!"

"Shh!" Sam said hurriedly, grabbing her arm as she made to rummage through the tents.

"Why?" She asked.

"Something might still be out there."

"Guys?" Beatrice said to their left. Sam and Dean jogged over to her, and she pointed to the fresh-ish tracks she had found embedded in the damp mud. "The bodies were dragged from the campsite, but here, the tracks just vanish. That's weird. I'll tell you what, that's no Skinwalker or black dog."

Dean hummed in agreement. Behind them, Haley let out a small sob as she found her brother's phone among the carnage. It was half broken, and the screen was smeared with blood. "Hey, he could still be alive!" Dean tried to reassure her but she didn't look convinced.

"Help! Help!"

The cry came from somewhere deep within the trees. Roy took off first towards the sound, leaving the others to follow quickly in his wake. "Help, somebody!" Whoever was shouting sounded desperate, terrified even. 

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" Haley said breathlessly as they slowed to a stop, only to find the woods empty.

Beatrice looked back uneasily at the direction from which they had just come. "Yeah. Okay, everyone back to camp."

"Don't you think-" Roy started, but Mina quickly cut him off.

"Oh, it wasn't a question," she said firmly. He stared at her for a moment, but the fierceness in her eyes put him off arguing, and the group trudged through the mud back to the camp. All the bags and supplies they had left among the clearing were gone. All they had was Dean's duffel bag, which was still slung around his shoulders.

"Our packs!" Haley gasped.

"So much for my GPS and my satellite phone," Roy grumbled.

"What the hell is going on?"

"It's smart. It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help," Sam told them with a sigh. 

Roy eyed him suspiciously. "You mean someone. Some nutjob out there just stole all our gear!"

Sam ignored him, instead turning to Dean and Beatrice. "I need to speak with you both. In private." He said softly. The three of them stepped towards the edge of the clearing, out of earshot of the others. "Alright, let me see Dad's journal."

Dean dug in his bag for the journal which he handed to Sam upon finding it. Sam was silent for a second as he flicked through the book, but then he settled on a particular page and stabbed at it with his index finger. "Alright, check it out."

"Oh, come on," Beatrice scoffed, "Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods, or... or northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west."

"Think about it, Bea," Sam countered, "the claws, the way it can mimic a human voice..."

"Oh, great," Beatrice sighed heavily, taking the pistol out of the back of her jeans, "well, then this is useless.""We've got to get these people to safety," Sam concluded, watching Dean slip his father's journal back into the bag. Both he and Beatrice hummed in agreement and they made their way back towards the tents were Haley, Roy and Ben were waiting patiently for them. "Alright, listen up," Sam announced, "it's time to go. Things have gotten... more complicated."

"What?" Haley said, stunned.

"Kid, don't worry," Roy tried to assure him, "whatever's out there, I think I can handle it."

"It's not us we're worried about," Beatrice told them firmly, "if you shoot this thing, you're just going to make it mad. We have to leave. Now."

"One, you're talking nonsense," Roy said, the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips which only irritated Beatrice further but she stood her ground, "two, you're in no position to give anybody orders."

"We never should have let you come out here in the first place, alright?" Sam cut in, coming to stand by Beatrice, "we're trying to protect you."

"You protect me?" Roy laughed nastily. He stepped up close to Beatrice and Sam, getting right in their personal space. "I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you goodnight."

"Yeah? It's a damn near perfect hunter. It's smarter than you, and it's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your stupid, sorry ass out of here."

"You know you're crazy, right?"

"Yeah? You ever hunt a wen-"

"That's enough!" Dean cut in, grabbing his brother's arm with one hand and Beatrice's with the other. "Chill out."

"Stop. Stop it!" Haley exploded. "Everybody just stop. Look, Tommy might still be alive. And I'm not leaving here without him!"

Dean sighed heavily. "It's getting late. This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves."

"How?"

Beatrice smiled weakly. "Oh, we have a trick or two up our sleeves."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! 
> 
> I just wanted to thank you all so much for the support and Kudos left on this work. This series is very very dear to me, and I've been really enjoying rewriting it for myself, but it all feels worth it when I see what a positive reception its been receiving, so thank you again, and please enjoy the chapter!

Beatrice and Sam watched from the edge of the campsite as Dean finished drawing a protective symbol in the mud with a stick. "So, one more time," Haley said softly as she poked at the fire she had built, "that's..."

"Anasazi symbols," Dean explained patiently, "it's for protection. The Wendigo can't cross over them."

Across the fire from Dean and Haley, Roy laughed. His grip tightened on his gun. "Nobody likes a sceptic, Roy." Beatrice told him pointedly, but he just rolled his eyes and ignored her. 

Dean chuckled. He got up from his finished drawings of the symbol and crossed the campsite to stand with Sam and Beatrice. "So, you wanna tell me what's going on in that freaky head of yours?" He asked Sam, who sighed.

"Dean-"

"No, you're not fine. You're like a powder keg, man. It's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?"

"Dad's not here," Sam said uncomfortably after a moment, "I mean, that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a... a sign. Right?"

"Yeah, you're probably right," Dean agreed, "tell you the truth, I don't think Dad's ever been to lost creek."

"Then let's get these people back to town and let's hit the road! Go find Dad. I mean, why are we still even here?"

"This is why," Beatrice cut in. She reached into Dean's bag and pulled out the journal.

Dean nodded in agreement with Beatrice. "That book is Dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people. Hunting things. The family business."

"That makes no sense!" Sam sighed, "why doesn't he just... call us? Why doesn't he... tell us what he wants, tell us where he is?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted, "but the way I see it, Dad's giving us a job to do, and I intend to do it."

"Dean... no. I gotta find Dad. I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's the only thing I can think about!"

"Alright, Sam," Dean said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, "we'll find them. I promise. Listen to me; you've got to prepare yourself. I mean, this search could take a while, and all that anger... you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have patience, Sam."

"How do you both do it?" Sam asked them quietly, "how does Dad do it?"

Beatrice glanced over at Ben and Haley. "Well, for one... them."

"I figure our family's so screwed to Hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little more bearable," Dean told him, "I'll tell you what else helps; killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."

"Help me!" A voice screamed somewhere among the trees. "Please! Help!"

"He's trying to draw us out," Beatrice said to the others, reaching for her gun though she knew using it would be fruitless, "just stay cool. Stay put."

"Inside the magic circle?" Roy taunted her but she tried her best to ignore him.

"Help! Help me!" The Wendigo cried again, followed by a deep growl that penetrated through the cool night air.

"Okay, that's no grizzly," Roy concluded. He turned and aimed his gun at the direction the sound had come from. Something rushed past the camp, rustling in the undergrowth and Roy opened fire. One of his bullets hit something solid and his face lit up with triumph. "I hit it!"

"Roy," Dean said in a warning tone but he had already abandoned the protective circle and disappeared into the forest. "Roy!"

"It's over here! It's in the tree!" Roy called. There was a pause, then a scream; and finally, silence.

"Shit," Beatrice cursed.

"I don't... I mean, these types of things, they aren't supposed to be real." Haley said shakily.

"I wish I could tell you different," Dean shrugged.

"How do we know it's not out there watching us?"

"We don't," Beatrice told her, "but we're safe for now."

"How do you know about this stuff?"

Dean looked thoughtfully between Sam and Beatrice. "Kind of runs in the family," he said after a moment.

"Hey," Sam said, coming over to them from the tree stump he had been sitting on as he thumbed through John's journal, "so we've got half a chance in the daylight. And I for one want to kill this evil son of a bitch."

"Well, hell, you know we're in," Dean said, flashing a grin at Beatrice which she returned.

"Wendigo is a Cree Indian word," Sam told Ben and Haley, showing them the Wendigo themed page from John's journal, "it means 'evil that devours'."

"They're hundreds of years old," Beatrice elaborated, coming to sit on a log by the fire, "each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, or other times a frontiersman, or a miner or a hunter."

"How's a man turn into one of those things?" Haley asked.

"Well, it's always the same," Dean explained, "during some harsh winter, a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help... becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp."

"Like the Donner Party," Ben said.

Sam hummed in agreement. "Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities. Speed, strength, immortality..."

"If you eat enough of it, over years, you become this less than human thing," Beatrice concluded, "you're always hungry."

"So if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?" Haley asked.

Beatrice sighed. "You're not going to like it."

"Tell me."

"More than anything, a Wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time, but when it's awake it keeps its victims alive. It, uh, it stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother's alive, it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, and safe. We gotta track it back there."

"And then how do we stop it?"

"Well, guns are useless. So are knives," Dean told her. He had been spending the last few moments assembling a basic Molotov cocktail like weapon, which he held up to show them, "basically, we gotta torch the sucker."

"We should find it," Beatrice said bravely as Dean passed her the supplies to make her own Molotov, "we're just sitting ducks out here, waiting. It could be anywhere and we're just... sitting here."

"No, you're right," Dean agreed, to her surprise. 

"Looks like it's even left us a trail," Beatrice mused as she made her way to the edge of the circle to observe the forest around them, and the prints that had been left almost deliberately in the damp mud.

Sam and Dean both hummed in agreement. The three of them ensured they were armed with the makeshift Molotovs, and then started to lead Ben and Haley through the dense undergrowth. "You know, I was thinking," Sam said in a hushed voice to Dean and Mina, "those claw prints, so clear and distinct. They were almost too easy to follow."

As though the creature had been listening, there was a deep growl behind them. Beatrice whipped around, clutching her Molotov tightly to her chest, but the clearing behind them was still empty. On her other side, there was a female shriek, and she turned to see Roy's corpse sprawled awkwardly on the ground in front of Haley.

"You okay?" Sam asked her. Haley nodded shakily.

"His neck's broken," Dean said gravely, crouching down by the corpse.

"Jesus," Beatrice mumbled, doing her best to avoid Roy's lifeless gaze. He seemed to peer right through her.

The Wendigo growled again, somewhere unseen among the trees. "Okay," Dean said carefully, starting to back up towards the others, "run. Run!"

The group took off into the forest. As they reached a small, rocky area, Ben stumbled and fell back, and Sam and Beatrice rushed back to help him, while Dean and Haley carried on into the thicket. "Come on, I gotcha. I gotcha," Sam assured him.

They started in the direction after Dean and Haley, but somewhere up ahead, there was another scream. "Haley!" Ben cried, sprinting in the direction the scream had come from. 

"Sam," Beatrice said gravely as she slowed to a stop. Dean's Molotov was in the middle of the floor, smashed in two.

"Oh, Jesus," Sam muttered. He reached down and picked it up. "Dean? Dean!"

"I don't get it," Ben said shakily, coming to the same conclusion as them; that the Wendigo had taken Dean and his sister, "if it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?"

"Honestly? I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off," Sam said, his tone undeniably shaky.

Something at the edge of the trees caught Beatrice's eye and she stooped to pick it up. It was a small, blue peanut M&M, Dean's snack of choice. "They went this way," she told the boys confidently.

Sam laughed, taking the M&M from Beatrice. "Well, it's better than breadcrumbs."

The three of them followed the trail of M&Ms to the entrance of a mine. The doorway had been half barricaded, and decorated with caution tape and signs warning them away, but Beatrice pushed the barricade out of the way and they went inside. The tunnel ahead was dank and damp, and Beatrice shone her flashlight to try and guide their way.

There was a low growl at the end of the tunnel and Sam hastily pushed Beatrice's flashlight down. The Wendigo stopped, but then took a different turn and bypassed them all together. "That was too close," Beatrice said, breathing out heavily. She hadn't even realised she'd been holding her breath.

Sam nodded in agreement. "Let's go."


	10. Chapter 10

As they reached the end of the tunnel, the floorboards creaked loudly beneath their feet. Beatrice tried to dart out of the way, pulling the boys with her, but the wood gave way and the three of them fell through the floor into the cellar below.

It wasn't a massively long fall, but Beatrice landed awkwardly atop Sam, who groaned loudly. "Sorry, sorry!" She said, quickly scrambling to her feet. She held out her hand towards him and he used it to pull himself up, almost pulling her over again in the process.

"You okay?" Sam asked her softly. She nodded. "What about you, Ben?"

They both turned to see the young boy already up on his feet with his back to them, trembling violently as he observed a large pile of bones in the corner. "Whoa, whoa, hey. It's okay. It's alright," Sam assured him, rushing over to obscure his view.

"Sam!" Beatrice cried suddenly.

Sam whipped around at the urgency in her tone. She, like Ben, was stood with her back to them, staring down the room. Dean and Haley were hung by their wrists, both of them unconscious and bloodied, but seemingly alive. "Oh my god, Dean," Sam stammered, as he and Beatrice rushed towards him while Ben started towards his sister.

"Haley, wake up!" He cried.

"Dean? Dean!" Beatrice said. She took Dean's face in her hands and gave his head a little shake. His eyes flickered open and he slowly started to stir. "Dean? Hey, are you okay?"

Dean winced, then groaned. "Yeah."

Beatrice took her switch blade from the back of her jeans and reached up, cutting the ropes around his wrist and freeing him before crossing the room to help Ben take Haley down. "You sure you're alright?" She called to Dean over her shoulder.

"Yeah. Where is he?" Dean asked, rubbing his sore wrists.

"He's gone for now," Sam assured him.

Beatrice and Ben helped Haley sit back against the wall as she startled awake. "Are you alright?" Ben asked her.

Haley nodded. "Yeah I'm... Tommy!"

The group followed her gaze. Not far past where Haley and Dean had been hanging, another boy was still attached to the ceiling, his head hanging low as he breathed shallowly. Haley rushed to him, gently touching his cheek. At her touch, his head snapped up and he looked around wildly. "Cut him down!" Haley cried.

"We're gonna get you home," Haley assured him tearfully.

"Check it out," Dean said, nudging Beatrice's shoulder.

She turned to see a pile in the corner; all the supplies the Wendigo had stolen from them. Sam reached into the pile and picked up a pair of twin flare guns. "These'll work," he grinned, visibly excited at his find.

"Alright, let's get the hell out of here," Beatrice said.

Sam tossed a flare gun over to Dean, and the two brothers led the rest of the group back up through the tunnel towards the exit. Somewhere among the dark, winding labyrinth, there was a low growl. "Looks like someone's home for supper," Dean mumbled.

"We'll never outrun it," Haley stammered, clutching her brothers a little tighter.

Dean glanced across at Sam and Beatrice, both of whom had already exchanged a knowing look. "You two thinking what I'm thinking?" Dean asked. A small grin came onto his face.

"Yeah, I think so," Sam said.

"Alright, listen to me," Dean said to Haley and her brothers, turning to face them, "stay with Sam and Beatrice. They're gonna get you out of here."

"What are you gonna do?" Haley asked him.

Dean winked at her and without another word, took off down the opposite end of the tunnel, wielding his flare gun. "Chow time, you freaky bastard!" Beatrice heard him yell, "yeah, that's right. Bring it on, baby. I taste good."

Beatrice waited until Dean's voice disappeared completely down the tunnel before she turned to the siblings. "Alright, come on. Hurry!"

She and Sam started towards the exit, leaving Haley and the two boys to rush after them. Beatrice had been confident Dean would lead the Wendigo away from them, but there was more growling around the corner and she froze. "Bea, get them out of here," Sam said to her.

"What? No!"

"Bea, go!" He said, raising his voice only ever so slightly. Beatrice stared at him, startled, but then she obediently started to lead Haley, Ben and Tommy away from Sam and the approaching Wendigo.

They started to approach the end of the tunnel but Sam still hadn't rejoined them. "Beatrice, come on!" Ben cried behind her.

Beatrice halted. "Sam?" She called, choosing to ignore Ben, "Sam, where are you?"

"Bea!" A voice called down the end of the corridor.

"Sam?"

"Beatrice!" 

Sam's tall figure appeared as he skidded around the corner and Beatrice breathed out in relief, but her expression soured drastically when she saw the gangling silhouette of the Wendigo chasing behind him. "Get behind me!" Sam ordered.

He came to a stop in front of Beatrice and the others, holding out one arm protectively in front of them as he used the other to support the weight of the flare gun. The Wendigo stepped into their line of vision, taking it's time to come towards them as it truly savoured the moment; a meal large enough to see it through the whole of winter.

"Sam?" Beatrice said in a soft voice. He hushed her quietly.

"Trust me."

And she did. Those two words were enough to settle the panic beginning to grip at her chest.

The Wendigo raised its claw, rearing back to deliver a fatal strike, but an inferno imploded in the middle of its chest and the beast went up in flames, ultimately disappearing. Dean was standing behind where the Wendigo had been only moments before, holding his own flare gun. "Not bad, huh?" He said with a grin.

Beatrice laughed shakily. "Yeah. Not bad at all."

The group stumbled out of the mine, following Dean's peanut M&M trail back to the main campsite, and then to the parking lot, where an ambulance was already parked waiting for them. "I don't know how to thank you," Haley said as paramedics swarmed them, guiding Tommy into the back of the ambulance.

Dean grinned lasciviously at her. Haley rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same. "Must you cheapen the moment?" She asked.

"Yeah!" Dean smirked.

A paramedic exited the ambulance, calling over to Haley and Ben, "you riding with your brother?"

"Yeah," Haley called back. She turned back to the trio and pressed a kiss to Dean's cheek. "Thank you all, for everything. I hope you find your Father."

"Man, I hate camping," Beatrice grumbled as the three of them made their way back to the Impala.

Sam laughed tiredly. "Yeah. Me too."

"Sam," Dean said suddenly, grabbing his brother's arm but Beatrice stopped as well, "you know we're gonna find Dad, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Sam responded earnestly, "but in the meantime? I'm driving."

Dean chuckled and tossed his brother the keys to the Impala. "Alright," the older Winchester said, "let's get out of here."


	11. Bloody Mary

Sam awoke suddenly and violently from a nightmare. His breathing was ragged and strained and his cheeks were damp with tears he hadn't felt fall. Eight weeks had passed since Jessica had been murdered, but it didn't take a genius to see he wasn't coping with it any better than he had been on the night she died. 

He sighed heavily, sitting up in his bed and running his hands through his hair, visibly frustrated with himself. "Sam, you okay?" A voice asked across the motel room. Sam followed the voice to see Beatrice sitting across the room at the table, her dark green eyes peering at him over the top of her laptop screen.

"Yeah. Just a nightmare." He replied, forcing a smile.

"Jess?" She asked. Sam nodded in response and Beatrice smiled sympathetically. "Well, here's something to take your mind off it; I think I've found us a case." She got up from the table and passed the laptop to him with a large yawn. It was fairly obvious she'd not slept all night. Her face was pale under hastily applied makeup and her eyes were smudged with dark violet outlines she had failed to conceal.

'SHOEMAKER, STEVEN. The Shoemaker family is sad to announce the sudden death of of their beloved husband and father, Steven Shoemaker. Steven was 46. A short service will be held on Wednesday.'

"What do you think happened to this guy?" Sam asked, glancing up at her with raised eyebrows.

"That's what we're gonna find out," Beatrice said, taking her laptop back, "Dean's loading the Impala." 

"Let's go, then." He yawned, getting up out of bed and throwing a clean shirt on before following Beatrice out to the parking lot.

"You had a nightmare." Dean said accusingly the second Sam got into the Impala.

"Yeah, another one. Well, at least I got some sleep." He sighed. 

Dean nodded, eyeing his brother carefully before he said, "yeah. Let's go."

-*-

Four hours passed before the trio arrived in Toledo, Ohio. The hospital was a large, ominously grey-bricked building with large iron railings and small, dimly lit windows. It looked more like a prison than a place of healing and Beatrice found herself shuddering beneath her hoodie. They bypassed the receptionist and made their way to room one hundred and forty four, where they found the morgue tech sitting behind a desk. He eyed them suspiciously as they went in without knocking. "Hey." He said.

"Hey." Dean said in response.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, we're the uh..." Dean trailed off, looking to the others for help.

"Med students," Beatrice said quickly to avoid arousing anymore suspicion than they already had.

"Med students?" The tech said dubiously.

"Oh, Doctor..." she paused, stealing a glance at the second name plate on the desk, "...Figlavitch didn't tell you? We talked to him on the phone. We're from Ohio state. He's supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse, for our paper."

"Well, I'm sorry. He's at lunch." The tech told them.

"Oh, well, he said, uh... you know, it doesn't matter. You don't mind showing us the body, do you?" Beatrice said smoothly, perching on the desk and flashing him a winning smile. The tech cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. "Doc will be back in an hour. You can wait for him if you want."

"An hour?" Beatrice cooed. "Oh, we gotta be heading back to Columbus by then."

"Uh, look, man. This paper's like half our grade, so if you don't mind helping us out-" Dean started with less than half of Beatrice's charm but the tech cut him off.

"Uh, look, man. No." The tech snapped. 

"I'm gonna hit him in his face, I swear." Dean said through gritted teeth, earning a dig in the ribs from Beatrice and she shot him a pointed look as if to say, 'let me handle this'.

She sighed, pulling her purse from her bag and laying down a few twenties. "What about now?" She said in the same sickeningly sweet voice, "you going to let us in?"

The tech smirked, sliding the money off the desk and tucking it into his breast pocket as he finally relented. "Follow me." He got up and led them through a seemingly endless labyrinth of corridors and wards and disinfectant until they eventually arrived at the morgue. He pulled out the drawer containing Stephen's body and peeled back the sheet. Beatrice grimaced.

"The newspaper said his daughter found him," Sam said, unphased by the sight of the corpse. "She said his eyes were bleeding." 

The tech nodded, recovering Stephen's face. "More than that. They practically liquefied." 

"Any sign of a struggle? Maybe somebody did it to him?" Beatrice suggested.

"Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone."

"What's the official cause of death?" Sam asked.

"Ah, doc's not sure. He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that's for sure."

"What do you mean?" Beatrice pressed.

"Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had a lot more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."

"The eyes, what could cause something like that?"

"Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."

"Yeah? You ever see exploding eyeballs?" Dean challenged him.

"That's a first for me. But hey, I'm not the doctor."

"Hey, you think we could take a look at that police report? For uh... our paper." Beatrice added, plastering the sweet smile back on her lips. The tech smirked, moving a little closer to her, and Beatrice tried not to let her disgust show on her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sam and Dean quietly seething, but she didn't acknowledge either of them.

"Well, I'm not really supposed to show you that." The tech said, his tone flirtatious. Beatrice swallowed the urge to roll her eyes and from her purse, pulled out another twenty.

-*-

As they left the hospital and headed back towards the Impala, Beatrice sighed heavily. "Might not be one of hours. Might just be some freak medical thing."

"How many times in our long and varied career has it been some freak medical thing and not signs of a supernatural death?" Dean argued.

"Almost never," Sam pointed out.

"Exactly." Dean said, grinning at Beatrice's pouting face.

"All right, all right." She laughed. "Let's go talk to the daughter."

They entered the Shoemaker house in the middle of a wake and Beatrice immediately felt out of place. Not only were they dressed entirely inappropriately, it was difficult to interrogate a person in a room full of mourners. 

"Feel like we're underdressed." Dean muttered aloud, almost as though he'd read Beatrice's mind. They wandered through the house until they reached the yard where more people were gathered, talking in hushed voices. A girl with a pixie haircut sat with another young girl who looked eerily similar to her, and two blondes.

"You must be Donna." Beatrice said gently, sitting by the girl with the pixie cut.

"Yeah."

"Hi, uh, we're really sorry." Sam said softly.

"Thank you." Donna said, eyeing them suspiciously.

"I'm Sam. This is my brother, Dean, and this is his wife, Beatrice. We worked with your dad."

"You did?"

"Yeah. This whole thing, I mean, a stroke." Dean said, severely lacking Beatrice and Sam's tact.

"I don't really think she wants to talk about this right now." One of the blondes told them with a scowl.

"It's okay. I'm okay." Donna reassured her.

"Were there any symptoms? Dizziness? Migraines?" Beatrice pressed lightly.

"No." Donna shook her head but the youngest, a pale girl with long dark hair, looked at her big sister desperately.

"That's because it wasn't a stroke!" She cried.

"Lily, don't say that." Donna muttered.

"What?" Beatrice looked quizzically between the two sisters.

"I'm sorry, she's just upset."

"No! It happened because of me." The girl insisted desperately.

"Sweetie, it didn't."

"Lily," Sam knelt down to her level, "why would you say something like that?"

"Right before he died, I said it." Lily explained tearfully.

"You said what?" Beatrice frowned.

"Bloody Mary. Three times, in the bathroom mirror." An uncomfortable silence fell across the group, before Lily spoke again. "She took his eyes. That's what she does!"

"That's not why dad died. This wasn't your fault." Donna attempted again to soothe her.

"I think your sister's right, Lily. There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your dad didn't say it, did he?" Dean said to the tearful girl, who shook her head.

"No.. I don't think so."

Beatrice smiled awkwardly. "Excuse us." The three hunters made their way back through the house and upstairs towards the bathroom. "The Bloody Mary legend. Did John ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?" She asked as she gave the bathroom mirror a suspicious once over.

"Not that I know of." Dean said.

Sam stooped to the floor, running his finger along the dried blood. "I mean, everywhere else, all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know nobody dies from it." He sighed, getting back to his feet.

"Yeah, well. Maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening." Dean suggested.

"The place where the legend began?" Beatrice offered. "Though according to the legend, the person who says B..." she trailed off, turning away so she was no longer facing the mirror, "the person who says 'you know what' gets it. But here..."

"Shoemaker gets it instead. Yeah." Dean concluded.

"Right. Never heard anything like that before. Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror and the daughter's right. The way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out." 

"It's worth checking into." Sam nodded.

They stepped out of the bathroom and almost collided with one of Donna's blonde friends. "What are you doing up here?"

"We... we..." Dean looked to Beatrice for help.

"We had to go to the bathroom." She said quickly, then flushed red at the foolishness of her own suggestion.

"Who are you?" The girl demanded.

"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad." Dean insisted. 

The girl scowled at him. "He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself."

Dean's face fell. "No, I know, I meant-" 

"And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming." 

"Alright, alright. We think something happened to Donna's dad." Sam relented.

"Yeah, a stroke."

"That's not the sign of a typical stroke." Beatrice pointed out. "We think it might be something else."

"Like what?"

"Honestly, we don't know. But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth. So, if you're gonna scream, go right ahead." Beatrice said with a little sarcasm.

"Who are you, cops?" The girl asked. 

"Something like that," Dean smiled ever so slightly. "I'll tell you what, here," he pulled out a crumpled receipt from his back pocket and scribbled down his phone number on the back, "if you think of anything, you or your friends see anything strange, out of the ordinary.. just give us a call." He handed her the paper, and the trio left the house.


	12. Chapter 12

Rain battered the street as Sam, Dean and Beatrice rushed into the library, partly to work, and partly to shelter from the storm. It was dark for the time of day, even considering the dense cloud covering the city. 

"Alright," Dean said as he collapsed at a table and rung the corner of his shirt out on the carpet, "say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's gonna be some sort of proof, like a local woman who died nasty." 

"Yeah, but a legend this widespread it's hard," Sam sighed, "I mean, there's like fifty variations of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch, another says she's a mutilated bride. And there's a lot more." 

"Alright, so what are we supposed to be looking for?"

"Every version's got some things in common," Beatrice told them, "it's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we've gotta search local newspapers, public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill." 

"Well, that sounds annoying." Dean sighed, glancing over at the row of computers. Each one had an 'OUT OF ORDER' sign taped to them, inked in unnecessarily fine calligraphy.

"Agreed." Sam muttered, getting up to scan the shelves for an appropriate book. "Let's get to work."

-*-

Sam startled awake. It was late morning. Beatrice was in the bed beside his, scribbling in a journal, while Dean sat at the table across from them, flicking through a book titled 'Legends and Lore'.

"Why'd you let me sleep?" Sam mumbled groggily as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. At the sound of his voice, Beatrice near enough jumped out of her skin.

"Cause I'm an awesome brother," Dean said without looking up, "so what did you dream about?"

"Lollipops and candy canes." Sam said sarcastically, "did you find anything?" 

"Oh, besides a whole new level of frustration?" Dean said. "No. I've looked at everything. A few local women, a Laura and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary."

"Maybe we just haven't found it yet," Beatrice sighed, attempting to reassure them but even she didn't sound overly convinced.

"I've also been searching for strange deaths in the area. You know, eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There's nothing. Whatever's happening here, maybe it just ain't Mary." Dean continued, glancing at Beatrice who shrugged, equally as clueless.

On the bedside table by Sam, his phone rang. He exchanged a glance with Beatrice before picking up. "Hello?" He said nothing else, but the expression on his face said it all.

-*-

Mina perched awkwardly on the back of the bench behind Dean, who sat sandwiched in between Sam and Donna's friend; Charlie, who wailed into her hands. There were few passers by, and though no one chose to pass comment, the looks they were receiving increased in strangeness. "And they found her," Charlie concluded through a sob, "on the bathroom floor and her... her eyes. They were gone."

"I'm sorry," Sam said gently.

"And she said it. I heard her say it! But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?"

"No, you're not insane." Beatrice assured her.

"Oh, god. That makes me feel so much worse."

"Look, we think something's happening here. Something that can't be explained." Beatrice told her, unsure of how to word it, "and we're gonna stop it, but we could use your help."

"Alright." Charlie nodded. "What do I need to do?"

-*-

Charlie shut the bedroom door, once belonging to her best friend. The window opposite her was slightly ajar, but she flung it wide open. Balanced on the sill were three people who couldn’t be seen from the floor below. "What'd you tell Jill's mom?" Dean asked as he climbed through the window, shortly followed by Sam who helped Beatrice in.

"Just that I needed some time alone with Jill's pictures and things," Charlie sighed as Sam pulled something from a rucksack and Dean closed the curtains, "I hate lying to her."

"Trust us, this is for the greater good. Hit the lights." Beatrice said. 

Charlie flicked the light switch into the 'standby' position. "What are you guys looking for?" She asked, curiously observing them as they pottered about the bedroom.

"We'll let you know as soon as we find it." Sam promised her. He had a digital camera at the ready, which he handed to Dean. "Hey, night vision." Dean switched the settings for him. "Perfect." He took the camera back and aimed it at Dean.

"Do I look like Paris Hilton?" He smirked. Sam playfully rolled his eyes and went over to the floor length mirror.

"So, I don't get it," Beatrice muttered, watching Sam film the mirror, "I mean, the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second one did. How's she choosing her victims?"

"Beats me." Dean sighed. Sam closed the wardrobe door. "But what I want to know is why Jill said it in the first place." 

"It was just a joke." Charlie said sheepishly.

"Yeah, well somebody's gonna say it again. It's just a matter of time." Sam stood in the bathroom, filming around the mirror where Jill died, when he paused. "Hey," he called. Beatrice got up from the edge of the bed and joined him in the bathroom. "There's a black light in the trunk, right?" He asked. Beatrice nodded. They both turned to face Dean, who sighed and disappeared back through the window. When he returned a moment later, he had the black light.

"Thanks," Sam said. He and Beatrice carried the mirror back to the bed and tore the brown paper wallpapering the back of the glass. Beatrice turned on the light, and illuminated the words 'GARY BRYMAN', smeared in what Beatrice could only assume was blood.

"You know who that is?" Beatrice asked, glancing over at Charlie.

Charlie shook her head. "No."

-*-

When they returned to the park a couple of hours later, Charlie was already waiting for them, sitting on the same bench. "So, Gary Bryman was an eight year old boy," Sam said, "two years ago, he was killed in a hit and run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry, but nobody got the plates or saw the driver."

"Oh my god." Charlie gasped. 

"What?" Beatrice asked.

"Jill drove that car." 

Beatrice exchanged an uneasy glance with the brothers. "We need to get back to your friend Donna's house."


	13. Chapter 13

Donna Shoemaker's lounge had an incredibly uncomfortable and tense feel to it. Charlie sat with her friend on the sofa while the three hunters lingered awkwardly in the doorway. "Why are you asking me this?" Donna asked quietly.

"Look, we're sorry, but it's important." Beatrice told her gently.

"Yeah, Linda's my mom, okay? She overdosed on sleeping pills. It was an accident, and that's it. I... I think you should leave." 

"Now, Donna, just listen-" Dean started but she cut him off.

"Get out of my house!" With an anguished sob she ran upstairs. 

There was an awkward silence as they watched her go, followed by her bedroom door slamming upstairs. "You really think her Dad could've killed her Mom?" Charlie asked quietly.

"Maybe." Sam admitted.

"I think I should stick around." She sighed, casting a sideways glance towards the staircase.

"Alright," Beatrice said softly, "just... whatever you do, don't-"

"Believe me; I won't say it."

-*-

Back at the library, the three of them had been researching Mary for hours. Beatrice was desperate to return to the motel and get some much needed sleep, but she was determined to finish the case first. That came before anything else. "Wait, wait, wait. You're doing a nationwide search?" She heard Sam say, and she momentarily looked up from her own book.

"Yep," Dean said tiredly, "the NCIC, the FBI database. At this point, any Mary who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me." 

"But if she's haunting the town, she should have died in the town." Beatrice reminded him.

"I'm telling you, nothing local, I've checked. So unless you got a better idea..." He looked between her and Sam but neither of them had any suggestions so he went on, "the way Mary's choosing her victims. It seems there's a pattern."

"I know," Beatrice admitted, "I was thinking the same thing."

"With Mr. Shoemaker, and Jill's hit and run, both had secrets where people died."

"Right," Sam said, "I mean, there's a lot of folklore about mirrors, that they reveal all your lies, your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul. Which is why it's bad luck to break them."

"Right, right. So maybe if you've got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it, and punishes you for it." Beatrice joined in, "whether you're the one who summoned her, or not." 

"Take a look at this." Sam said to her, handing her a crime scene photo. Pictured was a woman, lying in a pool of blood at the base a mirror. On the mirror was a handprint and the word 'TRE' written in Mary's blood. Beatrice cringed. "Her name was Mary Worthington. An unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana.”

“Well then,” Beatrice rose to her feet, “let’s go check it out.”

-*-

"I was on the job for 35 years. Detective for most of that. Now everybody packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder. That still gets me." The detective sighed, taking his hat off and laying it on the table. 

"What exactly happened?" Beatrice asked.

"You kids said you were reporters?"

"We know Mary was nineteen," Beatrice continued, ignoring the question, "lived by herself. We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know on the night of March twenty ninth someone broke into her apartment and murdered her, cut out her eyes with a knife." 

"That's right." The detective nodded. 

"See, sir, when we asked you what happened, we want to know what you think happened." Sam said.

The detective turned to a filing cabinet and pulled out a picture, the same crime scene photo Sam had shown them at the library. "Technically," he smiled sadly, "I'm not supposed to have a copy of this. Now, see that? T-R-E?" He pointed to the lettering on the mirror. The trio nodded. "I think she was trying to spell out the name of her killer."

"You know who it was?" Sam glanced back the detective.

"Not for sure. But there was a local man, a surgeon. Trevor Sampson. And I think he cut her up good."

"Now, why would he do something like that?" Dean asked.

"Her diary mentioned a man she was seeing," the detective explained, "she called him by his initial, T. Well, her last entry, she was gonna tell T's wife about their affair."

"Yeah, but how do you know Sampson killed her?"

"It's hard to say, but the way her eyes were cut out, it was almost professional."

"But you could never prove it?" Beatrice said sadly.

"No. No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous.”

"Is he still alive?" She asked hopefully.

The detective let out an extended sigh. "Nope. If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secret. But she never could."

"Where's she buried?"

"She wasn't. She was cremated."

"What about the mirror?" Dean nodded towards the framed glass in the picture, "it's not in some evidence lockup is it?"

"Ah, no. It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago."

"You have the names of her family, by any chance?"

-*-

"Oh, really? Ah, that's too bad Mr Worthington. I would have paid a lot for that mirror. Okay, well maybe next time. Alright, thanks." Sam snapped the phone shut. "So that was Mary's brother. The mirror was in the family for years, until he sold it one week ago to a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo."

"So wherever the mirror goes, Mary goes?" Dean asked, casting his eyes from the road for a split second to look at Sam.

He nodded. "Her spirits definitely tied up with it somehow."

"Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?" Beatrice asked, leaning forward slightly.

"Yeah there is. Yeah, when someone would die in a house people would cover up the mirrors so the ghost wouldn't get trapped." Sam confirmed with a nod, turning in his seat to talk to her properly.

"So Mary dies in front of a mirror and it draws in her spirit." Beatrice concluded.

"Yeah but how could she move through like... a hundred different mirrors?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. But if the mirror is the source, I say we find it and smash it."

"I don't know. Maybe."

Beatrice sighed at his response. The sound of Sam's cell ringing filled the Impala. "You gonna answer that?" Beatrice asked after a moment. Sam chuckled, opening the flip phone.

"Hello?" A familiar worried expression passed over his face. "Charlie?"

-*-

Charlie sat cross legged on the motel bed with her head in her hands. Every so often, she'd let out a little muffled sob as Beatrice, Sam and Dean covered all the reflective surfaces in the room. "You're gonna stay right on this bed," Beatrice said firmly, "and you're not gonna look at glass, or anything else that has a reflection. Okay? As long as you do that, she cannot hurt you.”

Sam perched on the bed beside Charlie as Dean and Beatrice finished up, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, hey. It's okay. Hey, you can open up your eyes. Charlie, it's okay. Alright?" He assured her gently. She looked up slowly, wiping her eyes.

"But I can't keep that up forever. I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"No, no. Not anytime soon." Sam promised her. "Alright Charlie. We need to know what happened."

"We were in the bathroom," she explained through another sob, "Donna said it."

"That's not what we're talking about," Beatrice sighed, "something happened, didn't it? In your life. A secret. Where someone got hurt. Can you tell us about it?" 

"I had a boyfriend. I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me. And he said, 'Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself.' And you know what I said? I said 'go ahead'. And I left. How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just... I didn't believe him, you know? I should have."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> Sorry again for the inconsistent updates!! I uploaded an extra chapter yesterday as apology but I'm hoping from today I'll be back to my usual upload schedule of Thursdays and Sundays. As always, thank you, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

"You know, her boyfriend killing herself. That's not really Charlie's fault." Dean said softly, pulling out of the motel parking lot.

"You know as well as I do that spirits don't exactly see shades of grey, Dean," Beatrice sighed, "Charlie had a secret, someone died, and that's good enough for Mary." 

"I guess."

"You know, I've been thinking. It might not be enough just to smash that mirror." Sam said.

"Why, what do you mean?" Dean asked. Beatrice could see by his face that he didn't like where Sam was going with his point.

"Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right? I mean, she moves from mirror to mirror so who's to say she's not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? Maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it."

"Well, how do you know that's gonna work?" Beatrice pushed. Much like Dean, she didn't think she was going to like his answer.

"I don't. Not for sure." Sam admitted.

"Who's gonna summon her?" Dean asked. 

"I will," Sam said bravely, "she'll come after me."

"You know what, that's it." Dean pulled up on the side of the curb. "This is about Jessica, isn't it? You think that's your dirty little secret, that you killed her somehow? Sam, this has got to stop, man. I mean, the nightmares and calling out her name in the middle of the night. It's gonna kill you. Now listen to me; it wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean, I'm the one who dragged you away from her."

"And me." Beatrice added quietly, her voice strained with guilt.

"I don't blame you. Either of you." Sam said firmly.

"Well, you shouldn't blame yourself, because there's nothing you could have done." Dean said tiredly.

"I could've warned her."

"About what? You didn't know that it was gonna happen! And besides, all of this isn't a secret. I mean, we know all about it. It's not gonna work with Mary anyway."

"No, you don't."

"We don't what?"

"You don't know all about it," Sam said crossly. He shifted uncomfortably in hiss eat, "I haven't told you everything."

"What are you talking about?" Beatrice asked.

"Well, it wouldn't be a secret if I told you, would it?"

"No. I don't like it. It's not gonna happen, forget it." Dean insisted.

"Dean, that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it. And you know what? Who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this. You've got to let me do this." Sam's tone turned pleading.

Dean nodded slowly. He wordlessly started the engine again and drove the remainder of the way in total silence. When they arrived, Beatrice picked the lock with a hair pin and they went in. Every surface was decorated with mirrors and she sighed heavily. "Well, that's just great. Alright. Let's start looking."

They split up. From across the shop, Dean called, "maybe they've already sold it?"

"No, I don't think so," Beatrice mumbled, coming to a stop in front of a large mirror. She pulled out the photo from her pocket. "That's it," she said to Sam. "You sure about this?"

Sam smiled weakly as Dean joined them. "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary."

Dean and Beatrice watched on nervously. Behind them, a pair of headlights shone into the store. Dean sighed. "I'll go check that out. Stay here, and be careful. Smash anything that moves." He handed Beatrice the crowbar and left the store. Beatrice could hear his faint voice drifting through the door. "Crap." He muttered. She almost smiled, then remembered why they were there.

A sharp breath came behind them and the two whipped around to look. Mary flashed into the mirror, causing Beatrice to gasp and hit out blindly with the crowbar, smashing the mirror before Sam could react. She appeared again in another mirror to the left of them, which Sam kicked with full force, shattering it.

"Come on, come into this one." He muttered.

Beatrice froze. "Sam, look," she whispered. Her reflection was as it should have been, but Sam's was smiling at them, despite the stony look on Sam's own face. Sam panicked and before he let out a choked breath, he pushed Beatrice to one side, away from the mirror. His hand then flew to his chest, gripping his shirt.

"It's your fault. You killed her. You killed Jessica." Sam's reflection told him. "You never told her the truth, who you really were. But it's more than that, isn't it? The nightmares you've been having of Jessica dying, screaming, burning. You had them for days before she died. Didn't you? You were so desperate to ignore them, to believe they were just dreams. How could you ignore them like that? How could you leave her alone to die? You dreamt it would happen!"

Beatrice stared intently at Sam but he was frozen in fear, blood pooling in the corners of her eyes. "Shit!" She swung at the mirror with the crowbar and as it smashed, Sam collapsed. Dean rushed into the store and crouched by him, shaking Sam’s shoulder hard.

"Sam? Sammy!" Dean fretted.

"It's Sam." Sam muttered, his eyes still closed.

"God, are you okay?" Beatrice fretted.

"Uh, yeah." Sam said, cracking open one eye.

"Come on." Dean started to pull Sam to his feet but Beatrice couldn't take her eyes off the broken mirror. From the frame, Mary's jerky body crawled unnaturally from the frame, as though she moved on broken bones.

"D-Dean!" She screamed, finding her voice at the last moment.

Mary started to straighten up and as she fixed her glare on the trio, they all collapsed, blood dripping down their faces. In a moment of desperation, Beatrice reached out weakly and snatched a small mirror from the display, turning the glass towards Mary. The Ghost tilted her head in confusion, much like a kicked puppy.

"You killed them!" The reflection choked out in an uncharacteristically deep voice, "all those people! You killed them!"

Mary let out a strangled cry, reaching for her throat but before her hands could make contact with her flesh she melted, feet first, into a pile of blood on the floor. Beatrice breathed out in relief, throwing the mirror to the ground. "Hey guys?" She whispered.

"Yeah?" They said together.

She grinned sleepily, wiping blood from her face. "This has got to be... like... what, six hundred years of bad luck?"

-*-

The only sound, cutting through the night, was the sound of the engine humming as it worked hard to keep the Impala rolling down the long stretch of dark road. The car came to a stop outside the house and Beatrice sighed deeply, almost as though relieved.

"So this is really over?" Charlie asked anxiously from beside her.

"Yeah, it's over." Dean reassured her.

"Thank you." She beamed as she got out of the car.

"Charlie?" Beatrice called through the open window. "Your boyfriend's death... you really should try and forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen."

Charlie nodded, hesitated, then disappeared into the house. Dean grinned at Beatrice in the rear view mirror. "That's good advice." He awoke the engine and drove down the street in silence for a moment before momentarily glancing at his brother. "Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Now that this is all over, I want you to tell me what the secret was." He said.

Sam seemed to hesitate. He looked back at Beatrice, but she was purposefully looking out of the window, avoiding his gaze. "Look, you're my brother, and I'd die for you. But there are some things I need to keep to myself." He said finally, forcing a smile.

Beatrice sighed deeply, resting her forehead against the window. 


	15. Chapter 15

The old Impala pulled up at a run down gas station. "Alright," Dean yawned, stretching his arms out in front of him over the steering wheel, "I figured we'd hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by midnight." He glanced between Sam and Beatrice, neither of whom appeared to be listening. Dean rolled his eyes. "Sam wears women's underwear," he added, in attempt to get their attention. Beatrice rolled her eyes.

"I've been listening. I'm just busy." Sam muttered to his laptop screen.

"Busy doing what?"

"Reading e-mails." Sam answered, still not looking up. Dean got out of the car and began filling the tank, leaving the door open so he could still talk to the pair of them.

"E-mails from who?" Beatrice asked curiously, resting her chin on the back of the seat in front of her.

"From my friends at Stanford." Sam told her.

"You're kidding?" Dean scoffed, "you still keep in touch with your college buddies?"

"Why not?" Sam's tone was only slightly defensive.

"Well, exactly what do you tell em'? You know, about where you've been, what you've been doing?"

"I tell them I'm on a road trip with my big brother and his girlfriend. I tell them I need some time, after Jess." 

"Oh, so you lie to them?" Dean frowned, getting back in the car.

"No," Sam scowled, "I just don't tell them everything."

"Yeah, that's called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it. Telling the truth is far worse."

"So, what am I supposed to do? Just cut everyone out of my life." He glanced at Dean, who shrugged. "You're serious?"

"Look, it sucks. But in a job like this, you can't get too close to people. Period."

"You're kind of anti social, you know that?" Beatrice told Dean with a scoff, sitting up and leaning forward in her seat. She turned to Sam with an eyebrow raised in question. “Sam, you don’t actually think I’m Dean’s girlfriend, right?”

“What?" For a second, Sam looked genuinely surprised, and then sheepish, "oh. Uh, yeah. I did.” 

Dean and Beatrice both stared at him before erupting into a fit of giggles. "Why the hell did you think that?" Dean laughed.

"Well, the night you broke into my apartment you introduced her as your girlfriend!" Sam defended himself.

"Oh my God, Sammy, that was a cover." Dean spluttered.

“I can’t believe this whole time you thought me and Dean were getting it on.” Beatrice giggled.

"I don't know, Bea, maybe we should." Dean teased her. Beatrice smiled and rolled her eyes playfully and Sam laughed as he continued to scroll through his emails. As he came across a particular message, his face fell drastically.

"God..." He mumbled under his breath.

"What?" Beatrice asked as the car jolted forward, sending her flying in her seat.

"In this email from this girl Rebecca Warren. One of those friends of mine."

"Is she hot?" Dean asked excitedly.

Sam ignored his comment. "I went to school with her and her brother, Zack. She says Zack's been charged with murder. He's been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn't do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case."

"Dude, what kind of people are you hanging with?" Beatrice stared at the back of his head, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I know Zack. He's no killer." Sam insisted.

"Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you." Dean sighed, pulling out of the gas station.

"They're in St Louis. We're going."

"Look, sorry about your buddy, okay? But this does not sound like our kind of problem."

"It is our problem. They're my friends."

"Sam's right, Dean," Beatrice cut in, "if something is going on, and we choose to ignore it..."

"St Louis is four hundred miles behind us, guys." Dean groaned. But as he pulled out onto the highway, he turned left instead of right. Sam smiled triumphantly. For once, he’d gotten his way.

-*-

Before Sam could even knock, the white painted door swung open. "Oh my god, Sam!" The pretty blonde girl who had answered pulled Sam in for a hug.

He laughed brightly, catching her. "Well, if it isn't little Becky."

"You know what you can do with that little Becky crap." Rebecca smirked, pulling back from the hug.

"Oh, she's definitely hot," Dean muttered to Beatrice, who smacked his arm.

"I got your email." Sam smiled sadly.

"I didn't think you'd come here." She admitted. Her eyes flickered between Dean and Beatrice.

"Dean. Older brother." He extended his hand, and she shook it.

"Beatrice. I'm a friend." Beatrice introduced herself.

"Hi." Rebecca said back.

"We're here to help, whatever we can do." Sam said, sensing some awkward tension.

"Come in." Rebecca stepped aside to let the trio in. Dean shut the door behind him, taking a good look around the hallway.

"Nice place." He commented.

"It's my parents'," Becky explained, "I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened. I decided to take the semester off. I'm gonna stay until Zack's free."

"Where are your folks?" Beatrice asked curiously.

"They live in Paris for half the year, so they're on their way home now for the trial. Do you guys want a beer or something?" She offered. Dean's face visibly lit up, but Sam cut him off.

"No, thanks. So, tell us what happened."

"Well, um, Zack came home and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn't breathing," Rebecca paused for a moment to gather herself as tears rolled down her cheeks, "so, he called 911, and the police, they showed up, and they arrested him. But the thing is, the only way that Zack could have killed Emily is if he was in two places at once. The police; they have a video. It's from the security tape across the street, and it shows Zack coming home at ten thirty. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight."

"You know, maybe we could see the crime scene," Sam said gently, "Zack's house."

"We could." Dean nodded.

"What could you do?" She asked tearfully.

"Well, me, not much. But Dean's a cop, and Bea's in training." Sam said. Beatrice shot him a look. Aside from the standard bullshit they told regular cops, she didn’t know a thing about the profession and Sam knew that.

"Detective actually." Dean corrected him, giving him the same icy stare.

"Really?" Rebecca said, wiping her tears. "Where?"

"Bisbee, Arizona. But we're off duty, now."

"You guys, it's so nice to offer, but I just... I don't know."

"Bec, look, I know Zack didn't do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he's innocent." Sam said.

"Okay. I'm gonna go get the keys." She disappeared down the hall.

"Oh, yeah, man. You're a real straight shooter with your friends." Dean said sarcastically.

"Look, Zack and Becky need our help." Sam said, choosing to ignore his brother's snarky comment.

"I just don't think this is our kind of problem."

"Two places at once?"

Beatrice shrugged, once again siding with Sam. "We've looked into less."


End file.
